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CDPXRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



THE OLD FARMER 

AND HIS 

ALMANACK 



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5«. 






THE 



OLD FARMER 



AND HIS 



BY GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE 



5«. 

^ jsoston ^ 

^ WILLIAM WARE AND COMPANY ^ 
^ 1904 1^ 



ALMANACK 

Being some Observations on Life and Manners 
in New England a Hundred l^ears Ago 

Suggested by Reading the Earlier Numbers of 

Mr. Robert B. Thomas's FARMER'S 

ALMANACK 

^ 'Together with Extracts Curious, Instructive^ and En- 
^ tertainingy as well as a Variety of 

^ Miscellaneous Matter 

^ 

^ 

<^ 
-»? 
-»? 
-^ 




Embellished with Engravings 






UBRAKYof CO?>iGR£SS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 22 liiU4 

Oopynum tintry 

Ot^ J J. / <? ^/ -^ 
CUSS a XAc. Noi 

f ^^-^ 3 
COPY B. 



Copyright, ig04 
By Horace E. Ware 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

NOTHING is more strictly contemporary than an 
almanac, except, perhaps, a newspaper. It is 
issued for the time being, and it becomes obso- 
lete, by a natural and inevitable process, when its successor 
appears. But this very quality of contemporaneousness 
which relegates last year's almanac to the dust heap, 
makes the almanac of a hundred years ago an historical 
document of some importance. An author who has his eye 
on posterity may distort his own environment in order to 
stand well with his future readers ; but an almanac-maker 
is subjected to no such temptation. He appeals to the 
immediate present, and his records have all the value of 
incidental testimony. 

When Mr, Robert B. Thomas published the first number 
of his Farmer's Almanack, in 1792, he had no thought of 
providing material for the student of New England life and 
manners in the twentieth century. He wished to earn his 
living and to furnish his fellow-citizens with something 
better for their sixpence than they were in the habit of 
receiving from other purveyors of similar intellectual wares. 
If he had foreseen that his little annual would continue to 
be issued for more than a century, he would doubtless 
have been overwhelmed by the responsibilities of his 
undertaking. He addressed himself to the men of his 



vi PREFACE 

own time, whom he thoroughly understood, and thus he 
has enabled us too to understand them the better. 

Few volumes can claim so intimate an association with 
the people of New England as the Old Farmer. " Books to 
them," wrote Channing in his Wanderer, speaking of the un- 
lettered population of a remote corner of the seacoast, — 

" Books to them 
Are the faint dreams of students, save that one, — 
The battered Almanac, — spht to the core, 
Fly-blown, and tattered, that above the fire 
Devoted smokes, and furnishes the fates, 
And perigees and apogees of moons." 

The Hbrary of Thousandacres, in Cooper's Chainbearer, 
was somewhat more extensive ; it consisted of " a fragment 
of a Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and an almanac that was 
four years old." But Mr. Thomas did not speak to the 
uneducated only. His audience was, in the main, intelli- 
gent and enlightened. If it is true, as it seems to be, that 
the progress of our country has been largely determined 
by the spirit and energy of New England men and women, 
one may claim, without fear of gainsaying, a position of 
some dignity for this unpretentious annual, which has, in 
its successive issues, been their secular manual of faith and 
practice for so many years. No apology, then, is neces- 
sary for the volume herewith presented to the friendly 
reader. It follows in the traces of an accredited guide. 
It avails itself of what Milton calls" the sure guess of well- 
practised feet." 

Mr. Thomas, of course, had collaborators. His annual 
acknowledgments to patrons and correspondents give 
ample credit to those who assisted him. In particular, 
there is a mystery attaching to the authorship of a portion 



PREFACE vii 

of the Farmer's Calendar which has never been completely 
dissipated, because the ingenious contributor, whoever he 
was, desired to remain anonymous. For convenience, there- 
fore, the name of the general editor has been freely used in 
speaking of this part of the Almanac. We are sure, at 
all events, that the precepts of the Calendar were fully 
approved by Mr. Thomas, even if he did not write them 
all with his own hand. 

A miscellany like the present is happily exempt from the 
obligation of drawing up and observing a definite pro- 
gramme. Qiiidquid agmit homines — 

Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, 
Our medley paper seizes for its theme. 

Some of our subjects demand serious treatment, for they 
concern the greater interests of mankind. Others, though 
beneath the dignity of history, are none the less significant 
to such as wish to understand what manner of men our 
forefathers were. Still others are trifles — " the perfume 
and suppliance of a minute." Yet the minor antiquities of 
a race are not to be despised. What would scholars give 
if they could discover an Old Farmer's Almanack for Shak- 
spere's century, or for Rome in the days of Julius Caesar? 
In developing the topics suggested by the Almanac, I 
have had recourse particularly to our older New England 
writers and to foreign travellers in America, of whom there 
were many soon after the War of Independence. At times, 
however, the temptation to go farther afield has been 
irresistible, as in dealing with astrology and witchcraft, or 
in tracing the history of the engravings which adorn the 
Calendar. 



viii PREFACE 

One of the chief pleasures of writing a book consists in 
exercising an author's privilege of consulting his friends, 
and the main object of a preface, after all, is to express 
gratitude for favors received. To Mr. Joseph Willard I 
am indebted for calling my attention to an important pas- 
sage in Judge Sewall's Diary which would otherwise have 
escaped my notice. Mr. Charles Armstrong Snow and 
Mr. Henry Herbert Edes have been of material assistance 
in elucidating Mr. Thomas's reference to Lady Hayley's 
Garden. The chapter on Indian Summer is based on 
the learned researches of Mr. Albert Matthews, who has 
allowed me to make free use of his article on the subject, 
but who must not be held responsible for certain conclu- 
sions at which I have tentatively arrived. Mr. Matthews 
has also given me valuable information with regard to 
mediaeval calendars. The libraries of Harvard College 
and the American Antiquarian Society have placed their 
treasures at my disposal. Professor Putnam, of the Pea- 
body Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, has had the 
great kindness to permit the reproduction of a sketch of 
a Massachusetts Indian which was prepared, under his 
direction, by Mr. C. C. Willoughby, and to explain the 
method of reconstruction of which this interesting figure 
is the result. Mr. Horace E. Ware has given my pages 
the benefit of friendly criticism and has made many fruit- 
ful suggestions. I have also consulted an article on the 
Thomas Almanacs by Mr. James H. Fitts, in the twelfth 
volume of the Essex Institute Historical Collections. And 
finally, I must express my gratitude to Dr. Nathaniel Ames 
the Younger, who, in 1758, while a student at Harvard 
College, wrote down, at the beginning of his Diary, with 



PREFACE ix 

noble disregard for pointing, the following sentences, which 
may serve as a peroration : — 

"They who see this in future times may know that 
it is the covering of an old Almanack 1758. And do not 
despise old times too much for remember that 2 or 3 
centurys from the time of seeing this you will be counted 
old times folks as much as you count us to be so now, many 
People in these times think the Consumation very nigh 
much more may you think so, and do not think yourselves 
so much wiser than we are as to make yourselves proud 
for the last day is at hand in which you must give an 
account of what you have been about in this state of Pro- 
bation & very likely you are more given to Vice than we 
are, and we than the last Century folks; if you have 
more arts than we have that you yourselves have found 
out impute it not to our inability that we could not find 
them out for if we had had only those very arts that we 
have now when we first came to settle in N. America very 
like we should have found out those very things which 
you have the honour to be the Inventors of. — Dinner is 
ready I must leave off." 

G. L. K. 

Cambridge, November loth, 1904. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

The Man and His Book i 

The Old Farmer and His Correspondents 25 

Astrology 39 

The Man of the Signs 53 

Artistic Embellishment 62 

Murder Will Out 71 

Wit and Wisdom of the Farmer's Calendar .... 78 

Lawyers and Quacks 98 

The Toad and the Spider 104 

Sugar and Salt 121 

The Flying Stationer 137 

Fire! 146 

"■Drowned! Drowned!" 158 

HUSKINGS AND OtHER AMUSEMENTS ........ l68 

Small Economies 184 

Indian Summer AND THE Comet 191 

Army and Navy 208 

The Schoolmaster 216 

Titles of Honor 234 

Munchausen 240 



xii • CONTENTS 

Page 

The Great Moon Hoax 251 

Entertainment for Man and Beast 262 

On the Road 285 

Have an Eye to the Moon ! 305 

What to Read 315 

Barberries and Wheat 327 

Indian Talk 333 

More Indian Talk 367 

Index , 379 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
Robert Bailey Thomas. From a Painting in the possession of the 
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts 

Fro7itispiece 

An Eighteenth-Century Bookbinder. From an original Label in 

the Harvard College Library 7 

Title-page of Osgood Carleton's Almanack for 1792 .... 8 ' 

Robert Bailey Thomas. From the Farmer's Almanack for 1838 16 

Title-page of the first Number of the Farmer's Almanack, 1793 18 ' 

Facsimile of Mr. Thomas's Signature 22 

Title-page of the Farmer's Almanack for 1795 25^ 

Horoscope for a Guinea Voyage, August 22, 1752. From the 

American Historical Record, I, 319 40 , 

Mock Horoscope. From Poor Robin's Almanack for 1690 . . 41 

Title-page of the Farmer's Almanack for 1810 62 , 

Cuts at the head of the Calendar Pages for January and August, 

1800. From the Farmer's Almanack 64 

The same for May, 1801-1803 (from the Almanack for 1803), 

and December, 1804-1808 (from that for 1804) .... (y^ 

Circle of the Months. From the Kalender of Shepherdes, 1503 

(Sommer's facsimile edition, London, 1892) 66"^ 

Cuts for January, 1809-1852 (from the Farmer's Almanack for 

1820), and November since 1852 (from that for 1904) . . 67 

Roman Farmer's Calendar, an inscribed stone. From the Real 

Museo Borbonico, II, plate xliv 79 

Facsimile of the Farmer's Calendar for October, 1800. From 

the P'armer's Almanack for that year 81 ' 



XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
Wonders of the Invisible World. From Glanvil's Sadducismus / 

Triumph atus, Fourth Edition, London, 1726 in / 

Fire-engine at Work. From a Broadside of Adam Nuttall, 
London, 1760, in the Library of the American Antiquarian 
Society, Worcester, Massachusetts 146 

Summons to a Meeting of the United Fire Society of Boston 

(instituted July, 1789). From the original 152 

Observation of a Comet. Reduced facsimile of the Title-page 

of Hevelius' Cometographia, Dantzic, 1668 192 

Title-page of Increase Mather's K0MHT0rPA4>IA, Boston, 1683. 

Harvard College Library 200 

Perry's Victory. From a contemporary Broadside in the Library 

of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. . 214 

Title-page of Cotton Mather's Advice from the Watch Tower, 

Boston, 1 713. Harvard College Library 224 

A page of Dr. Nathaniel Ames's Almanack for 1751, showing his 

Advertisement of the Sun Tavern, Dedham, Massachusetts 264 

Map of New England showing the first Railroads. From the 

Farmer's Almanack for 1841 302 

List of Roads to the principal Towns on the Continent, from 
Boston, with the Names of those who keep Houses of En- 
tertainment. From the Farmer's Almanack for 1802. (Not 
in absolute facsimile.) 304 

List of Books for Sale by R. B. Thomas at Sterling, Massachu- 
setts, in 1797. From the Farmer's Almanack for that year. 
(Not in absolute facsimile.) 326 

The Town Acts of Natick, Massachusetts, April i8th, 171 5. 
From the Original in the handwriting of Thomas Waban, 
Town Clerk 346 

A Massachusetts Indian. From a sketch made by Mr. C. C. 

Willoughby, under the direction of Professor F. W, Putnam 359 

Father Time as he appears on the Title-page of the Farmer's 

Almanack since 1852 378 



THE OLD FARMER AND 
HIS ALMANACK 

THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 

ROBERT BAILEY THOMAS has been a familiar 
name to American ears for more than a century, 
and for a considerable part of that time his vener- 
able features have been equally well known. Doubtless 
in the minds of many New Englanders he is intimately 
associated with Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait in 
miniature has for many years appeared, along with that 
of Mr. Thomas, in the ornamental border on the cover 
of the Old Farmer's Almanack. This association, though 
rather sentimental than historical, — for it does not appear 
that the two were acquainted in this life, — has reason and 
justice on its side. For both were typical New Eng- 
landers ; both achieved success from humble beginnings ; 
both were printers and publishers, and each was the 
putter-forth of an almanac which has its place in the 
intellectual history of our nation. Nor is this all. Differ- 
ent as they were in many respects, — in character, en- 
dowments, and career, — Dr. Franklin and Mr, Thomas 
resembled each other in the profession and practice of 
a certain homely philosophy of life which is not the least 
marked of their characteristics. Franklin, to be sure, was 
a genius, and Thomas was simply a man of talent who 
knew how to make the most of the gifts he had. But 
they were alike in their remarkable endowment of com- 
mon sense and in their ability to recognize and grasp an 

I 



2 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

opportunity. Finally, they were both genuinely Ameri- 
can in the best sense of that much abused and vaguely 
applied word, Franklin's biography is known to every- 
body. Thomas, however, is a somewhat shadowy figure 
in the minds of most of us. Yet his life, quiet as it was, 
is of some interest to the student of American manners, 
and we are fortunate in having authentic materials for its 
reconstruction, — nothing less, indeed, than a brief auto- 
biography, published in successive numbers of his own 
annual from 1833 to 1839, and introduced by a sprightly 
paragraph in the issue for 1832 : — "It is not unfrequently 
observed to the Editor, by persons residing in neighbour- 
ing States, or remote from his residence, that they sup- 
posed him long since numbered with the dead ; and that 
the Farmer's Almanack was calculated and edited by a 
connexion of the former editor. To satisfy such, and con- 
ceiving it may afford amusement to our patrons generally, 
I have concluded, if my life and health should be continued, 
in our next to give a concise memoir of myself and ances- 
tors." On the basis of this sketch, with the help of other 
trustworthy evidence, the following life of Robert B. 
Thomas has been put together. 

The earliest ancestor of whom we have any knowledge 
was William Thomas, Robert's grandfather, a native of 
Wales, who came to America about 17 18. Family tradi- 
tion, which the author of the Almanac, with characteristic 
caution, refuses to vouch for, reported that he settled at 
Stonington, Connecticut. At all events, he was certainly 
an inhabitant of Marlborough, Massachusetts, in or about 
1720, and he resided there until his death in 1733 (July 
25). William Thomas married Lydia Eager, the daughter 
of a respectable farmer of Shrewsbury, and had six chil- 
dren, two sons and four daughters, — all born in Marl- 
borough, the eldest in 1721 and the youngest, who received 
the singular name of Odoardo^ in 1731. The eldest son 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 3 

William, born March lo, 1725, was the father of Robert 
Bailey Thomas. 

WiUiam Thomas, the elder, was an educated man, having 
been a student at Christ's College, Cambridge. His son 
William had no such opportunities, but he seems to have 
inherited his father's fondness for books. His mother died 
when he was ten years old (Oct. 12, 1735) and he went to 
live in Shrewsbury with his maternal grandmother, Lydia 
(Woods) Eager, who had lost her husband in the preced- 
ing year. Mrs. Eager died in 1739, and William Thomas 
then returned to Marlborough, where his great-aunt, Lucy 
(Eager) Morse, received him into her family. Here he 
remained for some years, attending the town school in the 
winter, according to the New England custom. The terms 
were short, but the boy made the best use of his oppor- 
tunities. He was fond of reading, and, in the words of his 
son, "he purchased many books and soon became quite a 
scholar for those days." At the age of nineteen (1744) he 
took charge of a school at Brookfield, and later in the 
same year he " commenced in Hardwick, being the first 
schoolmaster in that town." 

Shortly after William Thomas came of age, he under- 
took what proved to be an unsuccessful quest for a property 
in Wales to which he had some claim as his father's heir. 
With this in view, he left America in April, 1747, but was 
captured in the next month by a French privateer from 
Dunkirk and lost all he had. He was soon ransomed and 
arrived in Boston in October. Two years later he sailed 
for England again, stayed some time in London, and visited 
Wales. His claim was outlawed, however, and he returned 
to America no richer than before. 

William Thomas apparently had a taste for adventure, 
which, as well as his fondness for books, he may have in- 
herited from his father, the emigrant and student of Christ's 
College. Possibly he was also desirous of making reprisals 



4 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

on the French. At all events, he received a lieutenant's 
commission in Capt. Samuel How's Marlborough Com- 
pany, and took part in the expedition to Crown Point in 
1756, serving for six weeks and two days. In 1757 he 
again volunteered. This time he served for only nineteen 
days, but it was active service. He was a lieutenant in 
Capt. John Phelps's Company, which formed a part of the 
Worcester County Regiment commanded by Col. Ruggles. 
The regiment went to the relief of Fort William Henry, 
leaving Rutland in August, 1757, and marching two hun- 
dred and fifty miles. 

His subsequent career is summed up by his son, who 
says that it would be difficult if not impossible to follow it 
step by step. He still kept school at intervals, became 
" assistant in a store," and afterwards " went into a small 
way of trade himself." In 1764 he bought a farm in the 
North Parish of Shrewsbury, now West Boylston, and in 
the next year he married, — late in life, for those days, for 
he was nearly forty years old. His wife was Azubah, 
daughter of Joseph Goodale, a farmer of Grafton, at whose 
house Robert Bailey Thomas was born, April 24, 1766. 

Two years later, William Thomas removed to his farm 
in the North Parish of Shrewsbury, and there Robert was 
brought up. He records with amusement that "he resided 
in four incorporated towns, and two distinct parishes, and 
one precinct" without leaving this same farm. The expla- 
nation of this paradox illustrates the rapid and perplexing 
changes in early New England topography. " Shrewsbury 
leg," as the strip of land where the farm was situated was 
called, was united to the Second or West Parish of Lan- 
caster in 1768. In 1 78 1 this parish was incorporated as 
the town of Sterling. In 1796 certain parts of Boylston, 
Sterling, and Holden were set off as a precinct, by the 
name of the Second Parish of the towns of Boylston, Ster- 
ling, and Holden, and in 1808 this became the town of 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 5 

West Boylston. The paradox in question was a matter 
of local remark, as appears from the words of the Rev. 
C. C. P. Crosby, minister of West Boylston, in his history 
of that town, in The Worcester Magazine and Historical 
Journal for August, 1826 : — " Among other strange things, 
there is a singular fraternity of men, who have lived in five 
incorporated towns, and two parishes, and yet, have never 
resided off the farms where they were born. This is ex- 
plained by the tract called the leg being so often trans- 
fer [r]ed to other towns." 

The education of Robert Bailey Thomas is an interesting 
example of the training of a studious New England boy. 
His grandfather, we should remember, was a Cambridge 
University man, and his father offered to give Robert a lib- 
eral education, — that is, probably, to send him to Harvard 
College in the new Cambridge, founded by an Emmanuel 
College man. Robert declined, — for his tastes, as he 
tells us, were mechanical rather than literary, — but he 
seems to have grasped every other means of improving his 
miud. He read his father's books assiduously, — and he 
says there were a good many of them. He went to school 
in the winter and received much instruction from his father, 
for whose learning he evinces considerable respect, and 
who "wished to make him a scholar." Superior penman- 
ship was then regarded as a very valuable accomplishment, 
and writing schools were much resorted to. Dr. T. Allen 
had the reputation of " writing the most beautiful copy 
hand of any person in the country " (that is, in that 
region), and William Thomas sent his son to Spencer in 
the winter of 1783-84 to have the benefit of his instruc- 
tion. How much stress was laid upon the art is shown 
by the fact that Robert followed his teacher to Sterling 
when the winter term was over and continued his lessons 
until the following April. 

It is curious to note that until he was twenty years old 



6 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Robert Thomas had made no progress in mathematics. 
In the winter of 1785-86, he records, "I was agreeably 
and closely occupied in the study of arithmetic, under my 
father's inspection, who was well versed in this science, but 
had never before allowed me to pay it any attention, say- 
ing, he could learn me figures at any time." ^ 

The introduction to arithmetic, late as it was, seems to 
have had a determining effect on the career of Robert 
Thomas. Perhaps he was all the more attached to the 
beauties of the science from not having its difficulties pre- 
sented to him when he was too young to grapple with 
them. His father's library contained a good many scien- 
tific books, among them Ferguson's Astronomy, which the 
young man read with great satisfaction, and from which, 
he says, " he first imbibed the idea of calculating an alma- 
nack." This plan he never relinquished. It became, to 
use his own words, "his hobby." He made many astro- 
nomical computations, but found himself unable to carry 
them far enough for the purpose without further instruction. 

Meantime he had temporarily adopted the family pro- 
fession of schoolmastering. He began in 1786, in his native 
town, and succeeded so well that the term was lengthened 
by subscription after he had, in the phrase of the time, 
" kept out the town's money," that is, kept school until the 
money appropriated by the town for that purpose was ex- 
hausted. He was obliged to " board round," and, like 
most country schoolmasters in their first term, found many 
of his pupils older than himself. For the next six years 
Thomas kept school every winter. The terms were short, 
and he had the spring, summer, and early fall to himself. 
He worked on his father's farm and continued the study of 
astronomy, but he still found it impossible to make all the 

1 The reader will remember that lea7-n in the sense of " teach" was for- 
merly in good use. It is improper nowadays, not because of anything 
essentially wrong about it, but because it is an archaism that has lost caste. 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 7 

computations necessary for an almanac. It was in 1792, 
near the end of his career as a pedagogue, that he made 
the acquaintance of Miss Hannah Beaman, of Princeton, 
who afterwards became his wife (November 17, 1803). 
The mechanical turn of mind which, as already mentioned, 




An Eighteenth-Century Bookbinder 

had manifested itself in early life, found employment in 
bookbinding, — a business which had long attracted him. 
He bound up manuscripts and account-books and repaired 
old books for the neighbors. From this to bookselling 
was but a step. In 1790 he employed N. Coverly, the 
Boston printer, to print for him a thousand copies of 
Perry's Spelling Book. These, and other school-books, he 



8 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

bound up himself, and " commenced bookseller," In April, 
1792, he formed a partnership with his younger brother 
Aaron, and they carried on the binding business, at first in 
a room in their father's house, afterwards in a bindery built 
for the purpose near by. The firm seems to have had no 
lack of work, some of which came from publishers in Boston. 
The fact that he was now an established dealer in books, 
and had turned his back on the profession of teaching, 
gave Thomas renewed hopes of publishing an almanac of 
his own. Accordingly in June or July, 1792, he went to 
Boston and entered the mathematical school kept by 
Osgood Carleton " in an unfinished building in Merchant's 
Row." Here he worked until the lattei: part of August, and 
made all the calculations for the first number of the Far- 
mer's Almanack, that for 1 793. Carleton was a man of some 
ability and himself the author of an almanac. Mr. Thomas 
refers to him with gratitude in one of his early numbers 
(1802): — "The Editor would be very happy to recognize, 
among his correspondents, his much respected patron and 
friend O. C who, not long since, quitted a confined em- 
ployment in town, for a rural one in the country." 
Carleton seems to have been noted for the purity of his 
English accent, — an accomplishment which, shortly after 
the Revolution, caused him more embarrassment than 
satisfaction. In 1790, at all events, he published a re- 
markable advertisement in one of the Boston newspapers, 
the Herald of Freedom : ^ — 

Osgood Carleton, 

HAVING been frequently applied to for a decision of disputes, 
and sometimes wagers,* respecting the place of his na- 
tivity, and finding they sometimes operate to his disadvantage : 
Begs leave to give this public information — that he was born in 
Nottingham-west, in the State of New-Hampshire — in which 
1 H. M. Brooks, The Olden Time Series, Boston, 1886, IV, 55. 



yf,iij0j^2^f^^ ^''^0^ 



/i'w ASTRONOMICAL DIARY 

ALMANACK, 

For the Year of our LORD 



^ 7 9 ^y 



Being EissEfCTiLE, or Leap Year, and ihe Sixteenth 
of ;he Independence of the t/nited States o/\America, 
which oORtmenced Ibfc 4th of July. 

Calculated for the Meridian of BOSTON, In Latitude 4* Degrees 
and 15 Minutes North, and Longitude 71 Degrees WBft of Greenwich 
Obfervatory ; but will, ferve, without any efTehtial Error, for all the 
New-England States. 

CONTAINING^ 

Lunalion-s ; Eclip/cs ; AfpeAs j.Judgment of the Wea- 
ther ; Timefiof Rifing, Setting, Sec. of the Sun, Moon, 
andoffereral Stars and Planets ; High- Water at Bos- 
ton, and a Table, fhewing the Time of High-Water 
atthe other mod -noted Ports in America ; Lift of 
Roads ; Federal and State Courts ; Duties on Spirits 
imported, and on thofe diftilled within the United 
States { with many other intcrelling ^'Mattel's. 



By OSGOOD CARLETON, 

Teacher of Mathenijaticks, in Boston. 



HO W ponderous this Starrj Frame ! 
No bounds or Limrts cap we name ; 
Could we thefe Stars fl/ Ages through. 
We mor« new Objeds ftill might view. 
Sceptic ! 'tis nx)t tV Effedt of Cbancfe ; 
A GOD did fpread the vaft. Ex?ans£. 



BOSTON: 

Printed and fold by Samtjel Hall, No. 53, CornKIll : 
Alfo, by Thomas C. Cusring, at his Printiog'Ofiicc, 
in S A L E M 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 9 

state he resided until sixteen years old ; after which time, he 
traveled by sea and land to various parts, and being (while 
young) mostly conversant with the English, he lost some of the 
country dialect, which gives rise to the above disputes. 

* Several Englishmen have disputed his being born in America. 

Boston, august 20, 1790. 

Mr. Thomas's account of his sojourn in Boston is worth 
reproducing for its topographical interest, if for no other 
reason. 

" While at Mr. Carlton's school," he writes, " I boarded 
in Milk Street, with J.^ Allen, a Scotchman. His wife was 
a young Englishwoman, with whom I enjoyed many a 
social hour; Mr. Allen was bred a gardener in Scotland, 
and at this time had the sole care of the then noted Lady 
Hayley's garden, situated on Pemberton Hill, late the 
estate of G. Green, but now entirely eradicated." 

In the garden and mansion-house I spent many pleasant hours 
in the company of the female members of the family. I was in- 
vited to take a ride to Cambridge at Commencement with my 
young associates, and enjoyed a pleasant time. In the course of 
the summer I made an excursion with a party to the fashionable 
resort Fresh Pond, in Watertown, where we passed the day in 
different amusements, and spent our money freely. I boarded 
in Milk Street, in the same house that Mr. D. Hill since owned, 
and where he kept a grocery store adjoining. Mr. Hill was noted 
for selling the best dry fish, or, at least, he possessed the faculty 
of making his customers believe it. 

Mr. Thomas's mention of Lady Hayley's garden, in 
which, as well as in the mansion house, he says he spent 
many pleasant hours, recalls not only a notable Boston es- 
tate, but a singular romance of provincial days. The fullest 
account of Madam Hayley (the title of Lady did not 
properly belong to her) is to be found in William Beloe's 



lO THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

eccentric work, The Sexagenarian ; or the Recollections 
of a Literary Life, 1817, in which she appears as " Mrs. 

H ." Beloe was a Londoner, who is described by 

Southey, in one of his letters, as " an odd man who talks 
in a dialect of his own, which puzzled me confoundedly." ^ 
He seems to have been well acquainted with the subject 
of his sketch, which may be accepted as correct in the 
main, though some of the details appear to be erroneous. 
Mrs. Hayley, he says, " was the sister of John Wilkes, of 
the famous memory, had a large portion of his intellectual 
endowments, and was very little his inferior in vivacity, 
humour, and wit. She was married first to an opulent 
merchant, who was succeeded in his business by his head 
clerk, Mr. Hayley, whose fortunes were made by his ob- 
taining the hand of the widow. He was afterwards Alder- 
man Hayley, and was a near relation of Hayley, the poet. 
He was a plain, sensible, good sort of man, wholly absorbed 
in commercial pursuits, and soon found it expedient, for 
the sake of a quiet life, to suffer his cara sposo to do as she 
liked. She was exceedingly well informed, had read a great 
deal, possessed a fine taste, and, with respect to literary 
merit, considerable judgment. She accordingly sought 
wnth much avidity, the society of those who were distin- 
guished in the world by their talents and their writings. 
When the expression of those is used, it must be understood 
to apply to men only, for on all occasions she was at no 
pains to conceal her contemptuous opinion of her own sex ; 
and it was no uncommon thing to see her at table, sur- 
rounded with ten or twelve eminent men, without a single 
female. 

" She had great conversation talents, and unfortu- 
nately, like her brother, she seldom permitted any ideas 
of religion, or even of delicacy, to impose a restraint upon 
her observations. 

1 To Grosvenor Bedford, Jan. 2S, iSoo, Selections from Letters, ed. 
Warter, I, 91. 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK II 

" Her disregard of propriety was also and conspicuously 
manifested on other occasions. She invariably attended 
all the more remarkable trials at the Old Bailey, where she 
regularly had a certain place reserved for her. When the 
discussion or trial was of such a nature, that decorum, and 
indeed the Judges themselves, desired women to withdraw, 
she never stirred from her place, but persisted in remaining 
to hear the whole, with the most unmoved and unblushing 
earnestness of attention." ^ 

After the death of her husband. Madam Hayley came 
to America to attend to his affairs in New England, where 
large sums were due him. Here we may abandon Beloe 
and pass over to the Recollections of Samuel Breck, who 
was born in Boston in 1771 and passed his youth there, 
so that he is a good authority for Madam Hayley's Amer- 
ican experiences. She was pleased with Boston, he says, 
and " purchased a beautiful house in Tremont Street, for- 
merly the residence of the Varsall [i, e. Vassall] refugee 
family. . . . Thus splendidly lodged, she formed her whole 
establishment in a style suitable to the mansion. The 
gayest liveries and equipage, the richest furniture, the 
most hospitable and best-served table — all these were dis- 
played to the greatest advantage by the widow Hayley. 
She had certainly passed her grand climacteric, and in her 
mouth was a single tooth of an ebon color. Her favorite 
dress was a red cloth riding-habit and black beaver hat. 
In these she looked very like an old man. Thus attired 
on some gala day, she was paying a visit to Mrs. Hancock, 
when Van Berkle, the Dutch envoy, happened to be in 
Boston. He came, of course, to salute the Governor, with 
whom, however, he was not personally acquainted. On 
entering the room, he saw a venerable head, decorated 
with a hat and plumes, belonging to a person robed in 
scarlet and seated in an arm-chair in a conspicuous part of 
^ Beloe, The Sexagenarian, 2d ed., i8i8, I, 324-5. 



12 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

the room, and knowing that Governor Hancock was too 
gouty to walk, he very naturally concluded that the person 
before him was the master of the house. He accordingly 
approached, and, bowing, said he hoped his Excellency was 
better; that being on a visit to Boston, he had ventured 
to introduce himself, for the purpose of testifying in per- 
son his high admiration, etc., etc. Before his compliment 
was finished, the lady undeceived him, but in such a manner 
as put the minister perfectly at his ease." 

According to Mr. Breck, she was " the principal star " 
of Boston society. " Nothing," he declares, " could more 
exactly resemble her brother than she did, except in the 
double squint, which she had not ; and as he was the ugliest 
man in England, the family likeness so strongly stamped 
on the face of the sister left her without any claim to 
beauty. Yet her highly gifted mind and elegant manners 
much more than balanced that deficiency." 

•' This most excellent woman," continues Mr. Breck, 
" had surrounded herself with a menagerie, so that the 
court-yard was filled with cockatoos, poll parrots, and 
monkeys ; yet she felt herself lonely, and set her cap for 
a husband. There was a young Scotsman then in Boston 
who was agent for a British mercantile house. His name 
was Jeffrey — a man well educated and of gentlemanly 
address. To him Mrs. Hayley gave her hand and fortune. 
Out of sixty or seventy thousand pounds sterling, she did 
not reserve a shilling for herself; but, in a fit of girlish 
love, poured the whole into the pocket of this young 
stranger, whose age could not have been one-half her own. 
Of this act of egregious folly she lived long enough to re- 
pent." 1 The marriage of Patrick Jeffrey, Esq., and Mary 
Hayley took place at Trinity Church, Boston, February 
13, 1786. She had not been in Boston more than five 
years, for her former husband, Alderman Hayley, died in 

1 Harper's Magazine, LIV, 827-8. 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK I3 

1781.^ Neither Beloe nor Breck gives any dates, so that it 
is necessary to supply them from other sources. We may 
now return to Beloe, who fully justifies Southey's opinion 
of his style: — • 

The hours of rapture, even with younger subjects, (votaries at 
the Hymeneal shrine) do not always extend beyond the honey- 
moon. When a female, approaching to seventy, leads to the 
altar a bridegroom who has not seen thirty, these hours of Elysium 
seldom continue quite so long. In a very short interval, a sepa- 
ration was mutually thought expedient. The lady . . . had con- 
fided everything to the generosity of her husband, and, with such 
an allowance as he thought proper to make her, she took a very 
early opportunity of re-crossing the Atlantic ; and after a short 
residence in London, fixed herself at Bath, where she passed 

"An old age of cards." ^ 

Beloe's account of the disparity of age is partly borne out 
by the records. Jeffrey died in 18 12, aged sixty-four,^ so 
that he must have been about thirty-eight years old when 
he married Madam Hayley. There is no evidence that he 
was illiberal to his wife when they parted. After they sepa- 
rated he removed to Milton, where he bought the Governor 
Hutchinson house and lived in considerable state.* 

Mrs. Jeffrey's death is thus recorded in the Gentleman's 
Magazine, under date of May 9, 1808: — "In Gay-street, 
Bath, Mrs. Jeffrey, relict of Alderman Hayley, and sister 
to the long-celebrated John Wilkes, esq., whose wit and 
abilities she in great measure possessed, added to a most 
benevolent heart." ^ 

The Vassall house, which Breck says was purchased by 

1 Nichols, Literaiy Anecdotes, IX, 453. Her first husband was Samuel 
Storke, who died about 1753. 

2 Beloe, The Sexagenarian, 2d ed., 1818, I, 332. 

3 Boston Town Records ; Milton Town Records, p. 231 ; Columbian 
Centinel for May 13, 181 2. 

* E. J. Baker, in History of Milton, ed. by Teele, p. 138. 
6 LXXVIII, 469; cf. p. 555. 



14 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

the Widow Hayley, is the mansion to which Mr. Thomas 
refers. Breck's account of the matter is not quite accurate. 
The purchase was made by Jeffrey, in 1790, four years 
after his marriage to the widow. This was one of the 
most famous estates in Boston. It included what is now 
Pemberton Square and had a frontage of 163 feet on 
Tremont Street. Vassall bought it in 1758 of the heirs 
of Judith Cooper, who was Judge Sevvall's daughter and 
had inherited the property from him. The previous 
owners had been successively the Rev. John Cotton, his 
son, Seaborn Cotton, and John Hull, the famous mint- 
master, whose daughter Hannah was Sewall's first wife. 
Sir Henry Vane had lived there when he was in Boston. 
Vassall paid ;^i,250 for the property, — a sum which brings 
home to one the advance in the price of real estate in this 
vicinity ! 

Jeffrey sold a part of the property to Jonathan Mason 
in 1802, and this Mason transferred to Gardiner Greene 
in the next year. Greene's lot included considerably more 
than the present Pemberton Square, for it ran back to 
Somerset Street and came down to Tremont Street. He 
afterwards added an adjacent estate, so that his Tremont 
Street frontage was three hundred feet.^ When Mr. Thomas 
was in Boston, in 1792, preparing the first number of his 
Almanac, the property had been in the hands of Jeffrey 
and his wife for a couple of years. Naturally enough, the 
beautiful terraced garden, which was one of the sights of 
the town, was called Lady Hayley's, rather than Mrs. 
Jeffrey's. That lady had become so famous under her 
former designation that she continued to be known by it 
€ven after her marriage to Patrick Jeffrey. 

In August, 1792, the smallpox became so prevalent in 
Boston that Mr. Thomas left town. After a few weeks, 

1 For the history of the estate, see the long editorial note in the Diary 
of Samuel Sewall, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 5th series, V, 59 ff. 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK I5 

he submitted himself to inoculation in " the hospital in 
Worcester, situated on the hill a mile north of the street." 
His account of this experience, though brief, is not without 
interest, for it gives one an inkling of his philosophy of 
life. " I flattered myself," he writes, " and was flattered by 
the doctor, of being a good subject, and would have the 
disease light, having never exposed myself to heat and cold 
nor excessive labor, and had ever been temperate; but it turned 
out quite otherwise. I had the disease very severely. For 
many days my life was despaired of; and, in fact, it was, I 
afterwards learned, currently reported in the neighboring 
towns that I was dead." He was five weeks at the hospital, 
and he speaks in the warmest terms of the kind attention 
he received. The autobiography concludes with these 
words: — " After I returned home I was weak and feeble 
for some months; after which I enjoyed good health, and, 
in general, have to this day, though advanced in life." 

Mr. Thomas lived several years after the publication of 
his autobiography. He died at his home in West Boylston, 
May 19, 1846, " leaving a large estate to his widow, and the 
two children of his deceased brother." ^ The Almanac for 
1847 begins with these words, which are his most fitting 
obituary : — 

In presenting to our friends the Fifty-fifth Nimiber of the 
Abnanac, our pleasure is saddened by deep and heartfelt re- 
gret, at having to announce the death of the senior editor of 
the work, whose name it bears. He died May 19th, 1846, aged 
80, after a long and useful life, beloved and respected by all who 
knew him, in deed and in truth, " that noblest work of God, an 
honest man." We feel that it is due to him, that this testimony 
to the purity of his character should be recorded here. He was 
a man of strong practical good sense, " kind of heart and open 
of hand," virtuous, upright, and scrupulously honorable in all his 
dealings. 

1 Dr. Samuel A. Green, in the Almanac for 1892, the hundredth number. 



i6 



THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 



The house in which Mr. Thomas Hved for many years 
has lately been removed in clearing the ground for the 
great Reservoir of the Metropolitan System of water- 
works.^ 

A small portrait of Mr. Thomas — a woodcut — ap- 
peared in the Almanac for 1837, with a characteristic 




Robert Bailey Thomas 
(From the Farmer's Almanack for 1838) 

note : — "In justice to myself, I ought to state that my like- 
ness is inserted . . . at the special desire of my publishers." 
The cut is repeated in 1838. There is a full-length por- 
trait, painted by an unknown artist,^ in the hall of the 
American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, and this is re- 
produced in the hundredth number of the Almanac (1892), 

1 See New York Observer, May 11, 1899; Worcester Evening Gazette, 
May 23, 1899. 

2 Sometimes ascribed to one Talcott : see Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc, New 
Series, VII, 357. 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 1/ 

to accompany a brief biography by Dr. Samuel Abbott 
Green. Both hkenesses are given in the present volume.^ 

The first number of the Farmer's Almanack, that for 
1793, was issued in the latter part of 1792. It was a signifi- 
cant moment in American history. National consciousness 
was in the full tide of development. Washington's first 
administration was drawing to a close. Five years before, 
the Constitution had been framed, and four years before it 
had been ratified by the requisite number of States, and 
had gone into effect as the highest law of the land. There 
was reasonable assurance that the United States govern- 
ment would succeed. The strong men of the Revolutionary 
period were in the vigor of mature manhood. It was a 
time of energetic and intelligent effort in all directions. 
" It has been a question," said President Stiles of Yale, 
in his sermon on The United States Elevated to Glory 
and Honour, delivered in 1783, "whether Agriculture or 
Commerce, needs most encouragement in these states? But 
the motives for both seem abundantly sufficient. Never 
did they operate more strongly than at present. The 
whole continent is activity, and in the lively vigorous exer- 
tion of industry." ^ Men's hopes were high ; nothing seemed 
too great for the future to bring forth. " All the arts," 
said the same eloquent preacher, " may be transplanted 
from Europe and Asia, and flourish in America with an aug- 
mented lustre." ^ He even ventured to predict that " the 
rough sonorous diction of the English language may here 
take its Athenian polish, and receive its Attick urbanity; 
as it will probably become the vernacular tongue of more 
numerous millions, than ever spake one language on 
earth." * The latter part of this prediction has been 
fulfilled. 

Mr. Thomas addressed a prosperous, intelligent, and 

1 See p. 16, and Frontispiece. 

2 P. 50. 3 p. 86. * P. 87. 

2 



1 8 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

aspiring community. He got the ear of his audience at 
the 'outset and has never lost their attention. The one 
hundred and thirteen successive issues of his Almanac 
cover almost exactly the same period as the history of the 
United States under the Constitution. The changes and 
the development of more than a century may be followed 
step by step in its pages. It need not surprise us, there- 
fore, that a file of these old almanacs affords an abundance 
of curious information and not a little entertainment. 

The first number was presented to the public with a pref- 
atory address which must be copied in full: — 

PREFACE. 

FRIENDLY READER, 

HAD it not been the prevailing custom to usher these period- 
ical pieces into the world by a preface, I would have ex- 
cused myself the trouble of writing, and you of reading one to 
this : for if it be well executed, a preface will add nothing to its 
merit ; if otherwise, it will be far from supplying its defects. 

Having, for several years past, paid some attention to that 
divine science, Astronomy, the study of which must afford infinite 
pleasure and satisfaction to every contemplative mind, it is this, 
with the repeated solicitations of my friends, that have induced 
me to present you with these Astronomical Calculations for the 
year 1793 ; which I have thought proper to entitle the Farmer's 
Aimattac, as I have made it my principal aim to make it as use- 
ful as possible to that class of people : Therefore, should there be 
any thing in it that may appear of small moment, it is hoped the 
Literati will excuse it. 

The arrangement of this Almanac is novel, though I have the 
vanity to believe it will be found to be as useful and convenient 
as any other almanac either of a double or single calendar. I 
have taken peculiar care to make the calculations accurate in 
every respect ; and beside the more than usual astronomical cal- 
culations, I have added the rising, setting, or southing of the 



r 



[N°- I.] ' 
THE 

FARMER'S ALMANAC, 

CALCULATED ON A NEW AND IMPROVED PLAN, 

FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 

1793- 

Being thtfirjl after Leap Year, and feventcenth of the 
Independence of America. 

FiUed 10 the town of Boston, but will ferve for any of 
the iidjoining States. 

Containing, befides the large number of Astro- 
nomical Calculations and Farmer's Ca- 
lendar for every month in the year, as great a vari- 
ety as are to be found in any other Almanac, 

0/ tiEW, USEFUL, and entertaining matter. 

BY ROBERT B. THOMAS. 



" Willie the bright radient fun in centre glows, 
The carih, in annual motion round it goes ; 
At the fame time on ifis own axis reels, 
And gives us change of feafons as it wheels," 



Publilhed according to Aft of Congrefs, 



PRINTED AT THE SLfollO PtCfe, IN BOSTON, 

BY BELKNAP AND HALL, 

Sold at their Office, State Street j alfo, by the Author 

and Af. Smith, Sterling, 

\ Sixpence fingle, ^s. per dozen, 40/. pergroee.'] 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 19 

seven stars, for every evening through the year. As to my judg- 
ment of the weather, I need say but little ; for you will in one 
year's time, without any assistance of mine, very easily discover 
how near I have come to the truth. And now, friendly reader, 
this being only an essay, which, should it meet with the Public's 
unprejudiced approbation, you may expect to hear again from 
your's, and the Public's 

Most obedient humble servant, 

ROBERT B. THOMAS. 
Sterling, Sept. 15. 

Fifty years later, in the Almanac for 1842, the vener- 
able author looks back over the past with modest pride. 
His annual had become a recognized New England insti- 
tution, and his feeling that his yearly admonitions were 
now read by the grandsons of his first patrons and corre- 
spondents lends additional interest to his reminiscences. 
They are not the random jottings of a casual recollection, 
but rather the systematic memories of a chronicler who has 
habituated himself to sum up each year as it passed. 

FIFTY YEARS AGO! 

It is just fifty years. Friends and Patrons, old and new — we 
know not which are the most numerous, or the most kind, you 
who have gone hand in hand with us for half a century, or you 
who have known us but a few short summers — it is just fifty years 
since we started our unpretending, but, as we trust, useful annual ! 
Fifty years ! It is a life by itself ! — In that time how many mil- 
lions, who were, half a century ago, living, breathing and moving, 
full of hope, of young life, of energy and of vigor, have gone down 
to the silent grave ! In that time what countless milUons of the 
human race have been called " to sleep the sleep that knows no 
waking ! " It is now but a little over fifty years since the immortal 
Franklin, author of that quaint, but time-honored work, " Poor 
Richard's Almanac," died \ he who " wrested the lightning from 
the heavens, and the sceptre from the tyrant." . Fifty years since, 



20 ■ THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

and the high and pure-souled Washington, one of the noblest 
characters that our country, ay ! or any country has produced, 
was ahve, directing with his wisdom, and giving, by his presence 
and counsels, new vigor to those energies which the people of 
these United States hardly dared to hope that they possessed ! 

Within fifty years, while we have gone on, in the even tenor of 
our way, our blessed country has stretched upward, from the lithe 
and pliant sapling, to the strong and mighty tree, spreading abroad 
her majestic branches, giving shade and protection to all who have 
sought her shelter, and firmly establishing herself among the other 
nations of the earth, with a population increased, during that time, 
from hardly four millions to seventeen millions. 

Fifty years ago, and cities, now full of thousands of souls, were 
the hunting-ground of the Indian, and covered only by the forest 
or the swamp. Fifty years ago, and the city of New York con- 
tained but about 33,000 inhabitants ; it has now 312,000. Bos- 
ton then about 18,000, now 93,000. Philadelphia then about 
40,000, now 260,000. Baltimore, which then had but about 
13,000, has now 100,000. 

Fifty years ago, and we had nothing of the gigantic wonders of 
steam ; we had no boiling cauldrons traversing the land and 
water, puffing and groaning, and pulling or pushing enormous 
masses with fury along, now here, now there, as the master spirit 
which controlled them might dictate. Fifty years ago, the worthy 
fathers and mothers of the present generation were willing to 
dress in their own homespun ; the busy wheel was whirring by 
the kitchen fireside, the knitting-needles were plied, and the wool 
woven in the house, and the finer fabrics dressed at the fulling- 
mill, which has given away to the spacious factory. The water- 
fall and steam engine, the improved spindles and other machines, 
manufacture now millions of yards, where fifty years since only 
hundreds were made, and that by the industrious and thrifty 
hands of the mothers and daughters of the hardy farmers of those 
days. 

With all the changes that have been going on in the great world, 
the course of our America has been " onward and upward." We 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 21 

have had as presidents, our Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mon- 
roe, Adams, father and son, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, and now 
Tyler. England has had her Georges III. and IV., her William 
IV., and now hss her Victoria. France has had more changes, 
has been the scene of more violence and more exciting and ter- 
rible commotions, than almost any other part of the civilized 
world, and from which, thanks to a kind Providence, we have 
been measurably exempt. Within fifty years Russia and all the 
countries of the old world have had their changes, some natural, 
others startling and impressive. The South Sea Islander has be- 
come converted to the gospel — the whole continent of New Hol- 
land, fifty years since a barren wilderness, has been partly peopled. 
The Turk has recognized the Jew as a human being and a brother ; 
he has exchanged dress with the Christian. 

Within the past fifty years science has done wonders for the 
human race ; she has by her discoveries, the facilities she has 
created, the powers she has developed, added to the wealth and 
happiness of almost every class in our land. The farmer, among 
others, is indebted to her for his well constructed ploughs, his 
improved breeds of cattle and swine, new varieties of seeds and 
grain, as well as trees, shrubs, and vines, and his improved imple- 
ments of every kind, from the simple apple-peeler to the steam 
threshing machine. Domestic economy too has been indebted to 
science for implements to add to our convenience and comfort. 
Within the past fifty years, commerce has made brethren and 
friends of the remote inhabitants of the earth, the cause of Peace 
has, as we trust, been progressing, that of Philanthropy and Tem- 
perance is rapidly advancing, and we trust as nations grow wiser, 
better acquainted, more civilized, that vice and ignorance will give 
place to virtue and knowledge, and the horrors of war to the quiet 
blessings of peace and good fellowship. 

Though we have now accomplished what has seldom been done 
in this or any other country, as we believe, the getting up and 
publication for half a century of a manual, edited by the same 
person, even as unpretending as our modest and homely annual, 
we do not mean to rest here ; should we be spared, we shall go 



22 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

on, as we trust, to " a good old age," and though we may not 
reach the looth number of the "Old Farmer's Almanac," yet 
we shall endeavor to improve as we progress, and continue to 
unfold our yearly budget to our patrons as long as Providence 
permits, hoping always to meet them with a smiling face, and that 
they will not be disposed to cut our acquaintance, as a modern 
dandy would a rusty cousin from the backwoods, because we look, 
as we pride ourselves in looking, a little old-fashioned, a little too 
independent to change our dress for each " new-fangled notion " 
— a little " t'other side of fifty." 

Friends and Patrons ! The form of the editor who has jogged 
along side by side with the older ones of you for fifty years, will, 
with many other forms now full of life and vigor, before another 
half century, be crumbling in the dust ! The world that now 
seems so joyous will ere that time have passed away from many 
millions now alive, it may be from the reader as well as from us ; 
and if so, may we receive the reward of the pure in heart, may 
our sins be forgiven us, and may our virtues be held in fond re- 
membrance by those who have best known us on earth, and may 
we pass to our final account as those 

"... who wrap the drapery of their couch 
About them, and lie down to pleasant dreams ! " 



tob^' 



ft'VtVOt^* 




The facsimile of Mr. Thomas's signature occurs at the 
end of the preface for the first time in this fiftieth number. 

In the Almanac for 1847, ^ft^*" announcing the death 
of Mr. Thomas, the editor goes on to say : — 

Previous to Mr. T.'s death, arrangements were made with the 
Publishers of the Almanac, for its continuance, and matter for 
succeeding numbers having been furnished us, it will be issued 



THE MAN AND HIS BOOK 23 

annually as heretofore, and we hope, with the assistance and en- 
couragement of the friends of the work, numerous and kind as 
they have ever been, to continue the Almanac, (the oldest one in 
the country,) through the present century, at least. Under these 
circumstances, and from respect to the memory of Mr. T. who 
first planned the Almanac, and has edited it so long, and whose 
name is associated with it in the minds of the friends of the work, 
that name will always be connected with it in future as in past 
time. 

Accordingly, the words 

Established in 1793, 
BY ROBERT B. THOMAS. 

have appeared on every title-page since the death of the 
founder, and for many years the successive prefaces have 
closed with a quotation from Mr. Thomas and a facsimile 
of his signature. The preface for the first number of the 
twentieth century sums up, briefly and forcibly, the long 
career of the Almanac, and suggests its intimate connec- 
tion with the life of our country. It illustrates, also, the 
unity of purpose which has governed the book through 
more than a hundred years and which may be ascribed, in 
no small degree, to the individuality of the only author 
whose name the title-page has ever borne : — 

TO PATRONS AND CORRESPONDENTS 

First issued for the year 1 793, The Old Farmer's Almanac has 
come down through the remaining years of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury, and the entire Ninetee7ith Century. We now give hearty 
greetings to our readers at the opening of the Twentieth Century. 

During the space of time above indicated, a period unprece- 
dented in human progress, whether in science, in exploration and 
discovery, in invention, in the growth of popular government, in 
the spread of civilization, or in the divers other directions of 
physical and mental energy and effort, we have kept on our quiet 



24 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

way, grateful for the words of commendation and encouragement 
we have ever and anon received from among the successive gener- 
ations of men and women of New England who have read and 
studied our publication. And it is with additional pride and 
gratification that we reflect how prominent has been the part 
taken by these same men and women of New England, and the 
descendants of many of them living in other regions, in the stu- 
pendous measure of human achievement referred to. 

Such having been our course, we are led to believe that the 
results of our efforts have not been without merit. And it is from 
what we have done in the past, and because of the character of 
the number of the Almanac we now present, rather than from any 
promises we might make, that we hope for your continued confi- 
dence and support, for 

" It is by our works and not by our 'words we would be judged : 
these we hope will sustain us in the humble though proud station 
we have so long held.^ . . . 

Rob'. B. Thomas." 

1 The sentence quoted from Mr. Thomas first appears in the Almanac for 
1836, where it is preceded by the quietly humorous phrase, "Notwithstand- 
ing our customary professions." 



rns 



LNo. HI.] 



FARMER'S ALMANACK. 

C UcuiaUd on a. n(w and improved Plan*- 
FOR THE YEAR OP OUR LORD 



1795 



Being the tbiTd after Leap Year, and Nineteenth of the Inde- 
pendence of A.merica. 
Fitted to ibt tow* ofSaJfott, ^itt ivUI fervt for any «/* tbt aJjouting Statts. 

Confainin^, be{ides the large number of Aftronomical 
Calculations, and Farmer's Callendar for every month in the 
year, as great a-rarieiy as any other Aimanack, of 

New^ Ufeful, and Entertaining Matter. 



B» ROBERT B. THOMAS, 




"Hail, Rature ' toirotaift inexfiaaftrble j 
Tby rifiog axid decaying fcencs: as h<av*o, 
With hand unerring, turns the (ilen{ fphcf€S< 
And. in fotarwMi brins^^tht fearo»»r«und.'' 



PRINTED IN flOSTON, 

FOR JOSEPH BELKNAP, t^o.S Doc&Sjuare, 
and THOMAS H A L L, ir^ Statt-SlrM. SoW b/ rtiem, hy 
rbe Author atiiM,Sroit!>, SteflJvg, and by the Bookfeliera. 

Frki 4©.'. aCnce, — 4*. a Doiet - ^p Smgie^ 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS COR- 
RESPONDENTS 

MR. THOMAS is never more entertaining than in 
his rephes to his numerous correspondents. His 
Almanac became popular so rapidly that, al- 
most from the outset, he received all sorts of material from 
interested readers^ — poems, anecdotes, and puzzles, ob- 
servations on agriculture, jests, riddles, mathematical 
problems. Agricultural observations were particularly 
welcome. In the preface to the second number (1794), 
the author, in stately, old-fashioned phrase, invites contri- 
butions of this kind : — 

My precepts and observations on agriculture, I have the vanity 
to believe, have been approved of by farmers in general. Agri- 
culture affords an ample field in this country for the ingenious to 
expaciate upon, in which improvements are making every day ; 
and as my greatest ambition is to make myself useful to the com- 
munity in this way, 'tis my sincere wish that men of experience 
and observation in agriculture, would be kind enough to forward 
me such hints towards improvement, as are capable of being ren- 
dered serviceable and of general utility to the public. 

And again, in 1795 : — 

Experiments in Agriculture ever afford me the greatest degree 
of pleasure and satisfaction ; wherefore, I earnestly repeat my 
solicitations, that gentlemen farmers, who have leisure and genius 
for making experiments in husbandry, would be kind enough to 
communicate their improvements which may be made useful to 



26 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

the husbandman ; in doing which, they will not only receive the 
grateful acknowledgements, but, confer the greatest favours on the 
Author of the following sheets. 

In 1796 Mr. Thomas met with a disagreeable experience, 
as may be seen from a passage in his preface for the next 
year: "It is with much regret, that the Author is under 
the necessity to apologize for the admission of some pieces 
of entertainment in his last year's Almanack, which was 
owing to his indulging the printer in that peculiar province, 
who took the liberty to retrench several useful matters to 
make room for a ' Sermon in favour of thieving,' and sev- 
eral ludicrous anecdotes, which were highly disgusting to 
many of the friends of the Farmer's Almanack, and for 
which he humbly asks forgiveness, acquainting them at the 
same time, that those pieces were unknown to him. In 
future, he is determined to make all the arrangements 
himself." From this time he scrutinized the lighter pages 
of his annual with the same care which he bestowed on the 
astronomical computations. 

In 1 80 1 begins the series of" acknowledgments to cor- 
respondents," which continued without a break for many 
years. The author is brief and pointed, — sometimes his 
frankness must have been rather startling ; but men were 
much in the habit of speaking their minds in those days, 
and Mr. Thomas had a touch of humor which deprived his 
sharp speech of much of its wounding potentiality. The 
closing words of the preface for 1801 embody in a sum- 
mary form much that was to come in detail, addressed to 
various persons in subsequent years : " Several favours re- 
ceived are deferred, for want of room; some, it is necessary 
to say, for want of merit." 

In 1807 there is a very outspoken remark: "J. P. is 
thanked for his good-will, but his Anecdote is too obscene 
for admission." In 1808 " S. D. is thanked for his kind 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 2/ 

intentions; but his riddle is not sufficiently enigmatical: 
besides, it has been often published." Another correspond- 
ent in the same year appears to have been too enigmatical : 
" Margaret Snufftaker's hints, are unintelligible and futile." 
Originality was ever a desideratum, and S. B., in 1809, 
seems therefore to have been treated with much considera- 
tion on the whole ; his " communications," he is told, " were 
very acceptable, though," adds Mr. Thomas, " we should 
have been better pleased if they had not been quite so 
stale, — have published the most interesting." T. K., who 
is noticed in 18 13, must have been what we should now 
call a stimulating or suggestive writer; his " favours," we 
are told, " though crude, are always acceptable, as they 
are generally capable of producing much sagacity." This 
is assuredly high praise ! 

When contributors expostulated Mr. Thomas took high 
ground: "J. H. seems to thjnk himself unfortunate — 
we feel to commiserate him, but we must claim the right 
to judge the palm " (1822). He is not to be dictated to, 
even by the ladies: " Mrs. H. wishes us to give her com- 
munication ' at full length ' — we really think a miniature 
would be quite as creditable to her, and we are certain it 
would be to us" (1827). In 1830 " our friend A. B. is 
thanked for his contribution, but at this time we have a 
superabundance of this kind of ware." 

Very rarely the full names of correspondents are given, 
as in 1837, when there had been some discussion about the 
correct answer to a problem : " Our friend Jerh. Hallet 
of Yarmouth, contends that Mr. O. Norcross, of Belcher- 
town, is under a mistake respecting his question, as in our 
Almanack for 1835, and wishes us to insert his demonstra- 
tion. Not having room, we rather prefer the gentlemen 
would settle it between themselves." This shows how 
carefully the Almanac was read and how entertaining its 
patrons found it. The old numbers were preserved, and 



28 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

the correspondents, as in the present instance, kept run of 
each other from year to year. The whole history of the 
Hallet-Norcross imbrogho covers the period from 1835 to 
1838, when the controversy is judicially summed up by 
Mr. Thomas : " Messrs. Norcross and Hallet's misunder- 
standing seems to be in Mr. N.'s misconception of the 
question." 

" G. H.," writes the editor in 1837, " may know how to 
manufacture salt — but we perceive he is no astronomer, or 
he would know the moon is not the only agent that governs 
the tides!' In 1843, " W.'s puzzle might be called a jumble 
— we confess we see no propriety in calling it a puzzle," 
In the same number there are certain " Home Questions 
for the New Year," which, though not a part of the Answers 
to Correspondents, stand so near that department that they 
may come in here, especially as they are worth saving, not 
only for their common sense, but because they show the 
complete identity of spirit and method between this, the 
fifty-first number of the Almanac, and its earliest issues : — 

Are your accounts all balanced up to Jan. i, 1843? "Short 
settlements make long friends." Are you insured against fire? 
Did you look to the cellar, the roofs of your house and barn, and 
the wood-pile, and to putting away your ploughs and other utensils 
before winter set in? Your children, of course, go to meeting 
and to school regularly ! Do you take a well-conducted news- 
paper? Have you made your will? settled all misunderstandings 
with neighbors? and do you avoid endorsing? The Scriptures, 
you know, say '' Leave off contention before it be meddled with," 
and also, " He that hateth suretyship is sure ! " 

The volunteer poets gave Mr. Thomas a good deal of 
bother, and when to the offence of doggerel, anonymity 
was added, the long-suffering editor felt under no obliga- 
tion to be mealy-mouthed. Thus in 18 10 he relieved his 
mind in the following epigram: *' Lines on inebriety, have 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 29 

not sufficient spirit to preserve them even one year, nor cor- 
rectness to entitle them to more than one perusal — the 
author has credit for one thing only, they are without a 
7iaine." Toward juvenile talent Mr. Thomas is more tender- 
hearted : " T. L.," we learn in 181 1, " displays some genius 
at poetry, but if we are not much mistaken, they are youth- 
ful effusions, which riper years might bring to maturity." 
Incorrectness and lack of polish are frequent subjects of 
complaint. Thus, in 1812, " A Riddle by J. D, wants many 
corrections; the author might be better employed behind 
the counter, than making riddles," — a critical snub which 
reminds one of Lockhart's sending Keats " back to the 
shop." In the same year we hear of one " C. C ' appar- 
ently a local Dr. Johnson : " The Midnight Ghost, is too 
incorrect to appear in print. We advise the author to 
hand it to his townsman C. C. after which it will appear." 
Another rebuke to youthful bumptiousness is tempered 
with Olympian praise : " Our young friend, who conceives 
himself ' behind the curtain,' has given himself abundance 
of airs, which, in some instances, partake of impertinence 
and vanity — however, as they are conceived to be the 
effusions of a juvenile fancy, they are easily pardoned. 
His poetry is far above mediocrity for one of his years — ■ 
his prose is wrote with care, and he displays no small de- 
gree of mathematical knowledge. We think, however, his 
riddle is not entirely original" (1813). Or^^ would like 
to see the packet which this Gifted Hopkins had sent to 
the philosopher of West Boylston. Anyhow he was not 
satisfied, and returned to the charge the next year; but 
Mr. Thomas is placid : " Our young correspondent X Y 
and Z seems to indulge a propensity for which he had our 
pardon last year. — Does he think we shall put up with 
insolence without notice? We confess, there are instances 
where it is the greatest wisdom. We are ever desirous to 
encourage the efforts of youthful genius, as far as our limits 



30 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

will admit — his poetry to head the Calendar pages is de- 
cent, and would have been inserted this year if we had not 
been under prior claims." 

It is good to know that the object of these strictures was 
not beyond repentance. In 1819 Mr. Thomas receives 
him into favor with frank cordiality: "We were much 
pleased at hearing again from our young friend X. Y. Z. 
and especially to experience his reformation of manners, 
if we may so express it — he has our well wishes and 
hearty forgiveness — With his other favours, we have to 
acknowledge the receipt of a Bank-bill, of which, sixty- 
two cents is placed to his credit in advance. — His future 
Correspondence is respectfully solicited." It is impossible 
not to recognize the quiet humor of the last sentence. It 
is like the waggish variation on the editorial formula : 
" All communications must be accompanied by a five- 
dollar bill, not necessarily for publication, but as a 
guaranty of good faith." Sometimes, indeed, a wrong- 
headed or sensitive contributor got the notion that money 
would secure the admission of poems or riddles to the 
columns of the Almanac. One of these, a lady, is gently 
set right in 1835: "Our friend Adelaide is mistaken in 
supposing, ' a necessary accompaniment,' was a pecuniary 
requisition — it had reference to a solution of a query, 
which is always requisite to secure an insertion. — If any 
innovations, in her last, she will be pleased to point them 
out, — we confess we have not discovered them." 

Mr. Seaman, the satirist, in addressing the present poet- 
laureate, remarks, speaking of a poem which Mr. Austin 
had recently published, — 

The editor avers it is a sonnet : 

I wish to make a few remarks upon it. 

Similarly affected was Mr. Thomas by a communication 
which he acknowledges in 181 5: " C. E. has favoured 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 3 1 

US with some lines which he is pleased to call ' a Riddle,' 
we confess they are neat and pretty ; but we think an 
epitaph would be equally as appropriate." 

In 1817 Mr. Thomas's memory saved him from becom- 
ing the victim of a mortifying imposition. His rebuke to 
the plagiarist is gentle enough, when the circumstances 
are considered, particularly since the "Thomas' Almanack" 
to which reference is made was that of Isaiah Thomas, to 
which the Old Farmer had been for years a successful 
rival : " S. F's Riddle will not answer our purpose for 
several reasons, one is, its obviousness, others we forbear 
to give, as they might wound his feelings. — We are sorry 
our friend should have such an itching for writing Riddles. 
— We should be culpable in publishing many poetical 
communications, which could only be interesting to their 
writers — ' Stanzas, to head the Calendar Pages,' he might 
have saved himself the trouble of transcribing, by referring 
us to Thomas' Almanack for 1789. — The anecdote not 
original, nor even new." 

" Hydrojnctrynarean' s Poetry, is too much allied to his 
name, to be useful to us," is a comment of 1818. Another, 
in the same year, is still more crushing, but it was appar- 
ently addressed to an anonymous offender: "We have 
received a large packet with Northfield post mark, pur- 
porting to be poetry, &c. The author may have it again 
by sending to the Editors." Praise and censure are judi- 
ciously commingled in 1821 : " P. N. R's Picture, though 
of the doggerel species, is not a bad likeness. — If he will 
take the trouble to point his lines and correct the orthog- 
raphy, and favour us with a copy, it shall embellish our 
next No." The poet was complaisant, and filed his verses. 
They appear, according to promise, in "our next No.," 
and here they are, for the edification of his grand- 
children : — 



32 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

PICTURE OF A DRUNKARD. 

(Communicated.) 

His eyes are red, a confus'd head, 

And face of crimson die ; 
His coat in slits, and patch'd with writs, 

The execution nigh. 

His hat much worn, his jacket torn. 

And pantaloons the same; 
An empty purse, and what is worse, 

That rum is all his game. 

His limbs are lame, tottering with pain, 

His vital power decay. 
His body thin, immers'd in sin, 

While rum bears all the sway. 

His note alas, goes for the glass. 

And everj'thing he 's got ; 
But the last cent, will soon be spent, 

An4 he a drunken sot. 

His house once good, tho' made with wood. 

Does now begin to go ; 
His barn all rack'd — while boards it lacks, 

Amidst the drifting snow. 

His wife once bright, his heart's delight, 

Is faded and forlorn ; 
His farming lot, is quite forgot, 
And he a nuisance grown. 

P. N. R. 
N. H. Feb. 1821. 

Now and then Mr. Thomas suggests that verses of a 
certain length are best suited to the width of his columns, 
though he does not insist that the poet shall always do 
homage to the typographer. In 1831 " O. C. is sincerely 
thanked for his ingenious Enigma : we should have been 
better pleased if the lines had contanied less syllables, 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 33 

eight is the utmost we are able to get into a hne — have 
reserved it for our next." 

In 1837 S. H. C is informed that his " Riddle appears 
rather lame — in fact, it is any thing but poetry." A 
similar criticism is passed in 1838: " Mrs. S. B.'s Riddle is 
any thing but poetry — abounding in unhappy metaphors. 
— Hope she will excuse us — though not possessed of 
youthful gallantry, we should be very sorry to be thought 
wanting in politeness to the ladies ! " To appreciate this, 
we must know that it appears on the same page with a 
woodcut of the author, then seventy-two years of age, with 
his hair tied in a queue, — the same portrait that is repro- 
duced on page 16 of this book. No doubt Mrs. S. B. 
forgave him. 

A charmingly courteous remark, which must have grati- 
fied the person to whom it was addressed, unless he was 
fully acquainted with Mr. Thomas's humorous wrinkles, ap- 
pears in 1840: "J. W. D. is pleased to favor us with his 
poetical effusions, for which he is entitled to the editor's 
grateful acknowledgements." The recipients of donative 
volumes of minor poetry might do worse than to have these 
golden words engraved in facsimile of their handwriting; 
editors, too, might copy them, and give up the familiar 
" declined with thanks." For anything more delightfully 
restrained we must go to Artemus Ward, who, when 
a stranger remarked that it was a fine day, replied 
" Middling," not wishing to commit himself. 

Postage was always a sore point in the old days. It 
might be either prepaid or collected on delivery, and un- 
lucky recipients of long-winded epistles or other useless 
matter often had a substantial grievance. Mr. Thomas's 
first allusion to the subject (in 1806) is appended to a 
compliment which he pays to a highly respected Quaker 
correspondent: — ''Friend R. D. is tendered the Editor's 
best thanks, for his several valuable communications, at the 

3 



34 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

same time, solicits a continuance of his correspondence. 
The postage the Editor will ever be happy in paying, 
though in some is a great looser." One of the losing cases 
appears in 1809: "A. R. Q. is thanked for his seasonable 
information. — Though we would remind him that his com- 
munications came so coated ?tp that we are obliged to pay 
double postage on them, we would advise him in future 
to leave off the wrapper or pay the postage." Again, in 
1810: " E. W. and others will be kind enough to pay 
postage on answers to Riddles in future, or they will not 
be noticed." In 181 1 : " G. S. our Boston querist — have 
no objection to his asking questions every day in the year, 
provided he ^ays \hQ postage — he will find an answer to 
his queries, without a fee, at No. 75, Cornhill," the book- 
shop of John West, who published the Almanac from 
1797 to 1820. E. F., in 1812, appears as a sinner against 
several principles: his ^'anecdote is of the coarser kind, 
and not capable of being polished without injuring the 
pith. His Meteorological observations, if correctly taken, 
would be useful. He will do well to remember the postage 
in future." By 18 14 the postage nuisance seems to have 
become intolerable. Not only is " J. H. jr." informed that 
"we conceive his Questions to be unimportant, and not 
worth the money we paid for them," but there is an em- 
phatic pronunciamento to the world at large: — 

j^^ No notice will in future be taken of any answer to queries, 
unless post paid. 

Even this was ineffectual, for, in 1824, " B. B's Riddle 
we think is rather a dear one, containing only eight short 

lines, and to be taxed eighteen cents and a quarter We 

will repeat what we have said once and again, that no 
question will be noticed unless accompanied with a com- 
plete answer, or demonstration, /^^5//rtZ(a^." Finally, in 1832, 
Mr. Thomas is able to reply to a contributor who " is 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 35 

at a loss why his ' communications are not noticed ' " that 
" this is rather unaccountable, when we have given notice, 
not less than ten different times, ' that no notice will be 
taken of any Query, &c., unless a solution accompany it. 
Post Paid: " 

Nobody worries about postage to-day, and, though we 
all know that it cost more to send letters in old times, 
few of us have the details in mind. They were complicated 
and must have been pretty vexatious. The Almanac 
furnishes all necessary information on the subject. Thus 
in 1798 we have this table : — 

Rate of POSTAGE of every single Letter by land. 





MILES. 


CENTS. 




f 30 


6 




60 


8 




100 


10 




150 


14 


single letter 


200 


15 




250 


17 




350 


20 




[450 


22 


Dr more than 


450 


25 



No allowance is to be made for intermediate miles. Every 
double letter is to pay double the said rates ; every triple letter, 
triple ; every packet weighing one ounce, at the rate of four 
single letters for each ounce. 

In 1800 there is a different table, and the postage on 
short distances is increased : — 

RATES OF LETTER POSTAGE. 

EVERY Letter composed of a piece 

of paper, conveyed not exceeding 40 miles, 8 cents. 

Over 40 miles, and not exceeding 90 10 

Over 90 do 150 12^ 

Over 150 do 300 17 

Over 300 do 500 20 

Over 500 do 25 



36 THE OLD FARMERS ALM-\NACK 

Even- Letter composed of two pieces of paper, double those 
rates. 

Every- Letter composed of three pieces of paper, triple those 
rates. 

Every Letter composed of foxir pieces of paper, and weighing 
one ounce, quadruple those rates ; and at the rate of four single 
letters for each ounce any letter or packet may weigh. 

Lentil 1816, this table, \i-ith a few changes, is printed 
nearly everj- year: in 1S16, howe\-er. the rates take a 
considerable jump : — 

/Hats cf POSTAGE cp srs^y s:yji£ Lsrrs.x sy la.vd. 

Miles. Cents. Miles. CenS- 

40 12 300 25i 

90 IS 500 30 

150 iSf For more than 500 37^ 

Xo allowance is to be made for intermediate miles. Every 
double letter is to pay double the said rates ; every triple letter, 
triple ; ever>- packet weighing one ounce, at the rate of four 
single letters for each ounce. — E\-ery ship letter originally received 
at an office for deli\-er}i- 9 cents. Magazines and pamphlets, not 
over 50 miles i 1—2 ct. per sheet. — Ch-er 50 miles, and not 
exceeding 100 do. 2 1—4 cts. — CH^er 100 do. 3 cts. 

In 1S17 the minimum rate settles back to six cents 
for thirt}- miles, which continued till July i. 1S45, when 
a new law went into effect, fixing the rate at five cents 
for three hundred miles, the weight not to exceed half 
an ounce. Single postage \\'as added for each additional 
half ounce or fraction thereof. The other pro\-isions of 
the new law need not detain us. An abstract was fiimished 
by the Almanac for 1S46. The three-cent rate was adopted 
in I $5 1 for any distance under three thousand miles. — for 
more than that distance six cents \*-as chained. In 1863 
three cents became the rate >^\-ithout regard to distance, 
and in 1SS3 two cents. The maximum weight for a single 



THE OLD FARMER AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS 3/ 

postage was increased to one ounce in 1S85. The history 
of American postage from 1793 may be followed in the 
successive issues of the Almanac. 

Here, as well as anywhere, may be appended a table 
which contains many novelties for the schoolboy of to- 
day, but which all New Englanders of forty will recognize 
as embodying much information once vitally necessary 
in making change. It is taken from the Almanac for 
1797: — 

The Value of the several Pieces of Silver Coin now in Circulation 
in the United States, in Federal Currency. 

Cents. Mills. 

One fourth of a Pistareen or lialf Dime . 5 o 

Four pence halfpenny 6 2^ 

Half Pistareen, or Dime 10 o 

Nine pence piece, or | of a Dollar ... 12 5 

Pistareen or two Dimes 20 o 

Quarter of a Dollar 25 o 

Half a Dollar 50 o 

Dollar 100 o 

Half a Crown, French 55 o 

Half a Crown, English 55 5 

Crown, French no o 

Crown, English 1 1 1 o 

10 Mills are i Cent. 

10 Cents — i Dime, or Disme. 

10 Dimes — i Dollar. 

ID Dollars — i Eagle. 

Similar tables, and others more complicated, appear 
in the Almanac for many years. In particular there is the 
regular schedule of the values of the shilling in various 
parts of the country. Instead of reprinting it, we may 
quote a passage from the autobiography of Lieutenant 
John Harriott, an English half-pay officer, who knew 
America well : — 



38 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

The various currencies of money, in the different states, are 
troublesome and harassing even to the natives of the United 
States, and still more so to strangers. A dollar, in sterling money, 
is four shillings and six pence ; but, in the New-England states, 
the currency is six shillings to a dollar ; in New-York, eight shil- 
lings ; in New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, seven shillings 
and six pence ; in Virginia, six shillings ; in North Carolina, eight 
shillings ; and, in South Carolina and Georgia, four shillings and 
eight pence. All agree that the evil is great and wants to be 
remedied ; but they say, such is the prejudice of the country- 
people in the different states in favour of the currency they have 
always been accustomed to, that it is feared, were an act of congress 
passed to enforce a general uniform currency, the country-people 
would consider it as bad as they formerly did the stamp-act. To 
this, I have frequently taken the liberty of observing, to several 
members of congress and others, that, if an act were passed for 
no book-debt, bond, note, bill, &c. to be admitted as evidence in 
their courts of law, except such as were kept or made in dollars 
and cents, (which all the public offices and banks already do,) 
the evil would soon be removed without other coercion than that 
of self-interest.-^ 

Most of us can remember when the shilling of i6| cents, 
the ninepence, two and thrippence, fo'pence ha'penny, and 
two shillings were terms constantly used in making small 
trades. To the rising generation these terms have merely 
an historical significance. 

1 Struggles through Life, London, 1807, II, 29-30. 



ASTROLOGY 

FROM the outset Mr. Thomas kept his Almanac free 
from astrology. This was not so hard to do in 1793 
as it would have been seventy-five years earlier, but 
it was nevertheless a sufficiently creditable feat. The false 
science of the stars is so nearly obsolete nowadays among 
intelligent people that one finds it hard to realize what a 
hold it had upon the popular mind in the eighteenth 
century and even later. But an example or two will con- 
duct us back to an age when the stars in their courses 
were regarded as potent in all human affairs, and we may 
well be surprised to see how short, both in time and in 
space, is the journey that we have to go. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century, it was 
customary, in some parts of New England, to employ an 
astrologer to cast a horoscope in order to determine the 
exact day and hour at which a vessel should weigh anchor 
for an important voyage. This seems to have been partic- 
ularly common in the case of slavers, perhaps on account 
of the great possibilities of profit and the peculiar risks 
which their traffic involved. Mr. George C. Mason, of New- 
port, whose extremely interesting account of the colonial 
slave-trade ^ gives a multitude of details drawn from origi- 
nal business papers, had "• seen hundreds of these horo- 
scopes " and prints a facsimile of one dated August 22, 
1752, and prepared for a voyage to the Guinea coast. 

1 The African Slave Trade in Colonial Times, in The American Histori- 
cal Record, 1872, I, 311-19, 33S-45. 



40 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

He appends an extract from an astrologer's letter to a 
Newport merchant referring to a more rigorous computa- 
tion of the moon's place than was to be found in the 
current almanacs, for which the cunning man professes a 
dignified contempt. A marginal note, doubtless from the 
hand of the shipmaster, on one of these horoscopes, re- 
marks that " 6 D. & h [i. e. the sixth day and hour] always 
wins the profits," which seems to point to some personal 
superstition on the captain's part, derived perhaps from 
his experience in lucky and unlucky seafaring. Sailors 
are proverbiall}^ superstitious (and no wonder), but without 
much evidence one would scarcely have believed that our 
hard-headed New England forefathers on the coast were 
at all addicted to the elaborate trifling which the practice 
of so abstruse a science as astrology involves. 

There is a casual reference to the same subject in the 
Diary of President Stiles, of Yale College, where, under 
date of June 13, 1773, he mentions, as lately dead, " Mr. 
Stafford of Tiverton," who " was wont to tell where lost 
things might be found, and what day, hour and minute 
was fortunate for vessels to sail." ^ 

Poor Robin's Almanack for 1690 contained a burlesque 
horoscope, which the author called " the ass-trological 
scheme." A comparison with that drawn up for the New- 
port shipmaster will show that it was not a bad parody. 
" By this Scheme," adds the jocose author, " a man may 
foretel things that never will be, as well as those that never 
were ; and is as proper for an Almanack as a Nose for a 
mans Face : for as a Face looks ill favouredly without a 
Nose, so doth an Almanack without a Scheme." 

Astrology turns up now and then in the theses discussed 
by candidates for the degree of Master of Arts at Harvard 
College, and that too at a comparatively late date. Thus 
in 1762 it was decided that "the heavenly bodies produce 

^ Literarj' Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Dexter, I, 386. 







/ ' f:^>^f 




/3,A 



Ship's Horoscope for a Guinea Voyage 



ASTROLOGY 



41 



changes in the bodies of animals." Perhaps this may not 
be regarded as genuine astrology, but no one can doubt 
the nature of the following question, which was negatived 
in 1728: — "Do medicinal herbs operate by planetary 
power? " In 1694 it was decided that " divinations by the 




Mock Horoscope 
(From Poor Robin's Almanack for 1690) 



planets are not justifiable." Two questions must not be 
mistaken as astrological : " Will a comet be the cause of 
the world's final conflagration?" (settled affirmatively in 
1759) and " Is a comet which only appears after many years 
more a foreshadowing of divine wrath than a planet which 
rises daily?" (negatived in 1770).^ 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, XVIII, 123 ff. 



42 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

An irrefutable proof that the whimsicaHties of astrology, 
palmistry, and physiognomy were not unknown among 
the country people in New England at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century is found in the circulation 
of the so-called Book of Knowledge. This curious man- 
ual purported to be written by " Erra Pater, a Jew 
Doctor in Astronomy and Physic, born in Bethany, near 
Mount Olivet in Judea," and to have been "made Eng- 
lish" by \V. Lilly, the famous astrologer. I have ex- 
amined an undated edition with the imprint " Worcester, 
Printed by Isaiah Thomas. Jun.," and another printed 
at Suffield by Edward Gray, in 1799. The title-page, 
after the old fashion, furnishes one with a pretty complete 
table of contents. The little book, which was meant to be 
hawked about the country by book-peddlers, is said to 
treat of " the Wisdom of the Ancients " in four parts. The 
first part shows '' the various and wonderful Opperations of 
the Signs and Planets, and other celestial Constellations, on 
theBodies of Men, &c." The second gives " Prognostications 
for ever necessary to keep the Body in Health ; with several 
choice Receipts in Physic and Surgery." The third is an 
" Abstract of the Art of Physiognomy and Palmistry, 
together with the Signification of Moles, and the Interpre- 
tation of Dreams, &c." The fourth is " The Farmer's Cal- 
endar, containing, ist. Perpetual Prognostications for 
Weather. 2d. The whole Mystery of Husbandry. 3d. 
The complete and experienced Farrier and Cowleech, &c." 
Among the miscellaneous matter are a number of forms for 
bills, bonds, indentures, deeds, bills of exchange, and the 
like — as in the " Every Man his own Lawyer " of our own 
day. All this in a little book of less than a hundred and 
twenty pages. Truly the buyer got a good deal for his 
shilling ! 

The astrology is of the simplest and most popular kind. 
The main definitions are given, and the familiar elementary 



ASTROLOGY 43 

principles of nativities. Thus we learn that " the sun being 
in Virgo, makes the men [born at that time] fortunate and 
successful in household affairs, wise and fruitful, stout and 
ambitious : his wife shall die suddenly in his absence ; he 
shall have many things stolen from him, but shall be re- 
venged on his enemies. He shall be so much given to talk, 
that he cannot keep his own secrets. — It also shews one 
fair-faced, of a genteel behaviour, a lover of women, and 
delightful to be in the courts of princes and noblemen," 
and so on. " If the native be a maiden, she will be witty, 
honest, and modest ; of a willing mind, diligent and circum- 
spect; and shall be married about the age of fifteen years." 
This last remark comes in with unconscious humor in close 
connection with the " willing mind " just referred to. 

The precepts of physiognomy are amusing, and some of 
them are still familiar in folk-lore or proverbial saying. "A 
large head shows a person stupid and of a dull apprehen- 
sion, also a very small head signifies the same." This re- 
minds one of the nursery rhyme : — 

Great head, little wit; 
Small head, not a bit. 

Outworn wisdom frequently takes refuge in the adages of 
the nursery. More startling are the remarks that " a fat 
face shews a man to be a liar, and foolish," " a long slender 
neck shews a man to be a coward," and " slender legs de- 
note ignorance." 

Almanacs were of course astrolosrical from the besfinninsf. 
They existed largely for the purpose of designating the 
days and hours upon which the particular influence of this 
or that planet would be operative. Let us take an instance 
from the "Monthly Observations," for March, 1700, in 
Partridge's almanac for that year.^ 

1 Merlinus Liberatus, published by the Company of Stationers. 



44 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

I Last Quarter, the first day, at noon. 

2 

3 The General Affairs of Europe begin 

4 to move and look with an angry face ; 

5 yet I do not think things are yet ripe 

6 for Action, or fit for what they are 

7 design'd. Yet a little while and you '11 

8 see. 

9 New I 9 day, 3 ho. 53 min. afternoon. 

10 If his Majesty of Poland was born, 

11 as some say, Apr. 27. or, as others, May 

12 the 2d. 1670; he is like to have a very 

13 troublesome year of this, and that from 

14 the lay Transit of Mars through Scor- 

15 pio all this Summer, and some other 

16 First Q. 16 day, 49 min. past 11 at night. 

17 things. There is a Fire kindhng in 

18 those Northern parts, I hope to a good 

19 purpose. 

20 Mars hath lately been in Trine to 

21 the Sun, and now running Retrograde 

22 in a fixed Sign. The Souldiery of Na- 

23 Full #23 day, 20 min. past 5 at night. 

24 tions may sleep a while, but I think 

25 not long, perhaps this Century may 

26 end first; and perhaps not, if Nostra- 

27 dame says true. 
28 

29 

30 Last Q 31 day, 35 min. past 6 morning. 

31 

Partridge and Gadbury were the best known almanac- 
makers of their day. They were equally popular in their 
lifetime, but in posthumous reputation Partridge has 
distanced his rival. He owes his immortality not so much 

to his own performances as to the satire of Swift. The 



ASTROLOGY 45 

affair is one of the most celebrated episodes in Queen 
Anne literature, but, familiar as it is, it can hardly be 
passed by without a word. In 1707 Swift published, under 
the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., " Predictions for the 
Year 1708, Wherein the Month and the Day of the Month 
are set down, the Persons named, and the great Actions and 
Events of next Year particularly related, as they will come 
to pass. Written to prevent the People of England from 
being further imposed on by vulgar Almanack Makers." 
The writer professed to be a scientific astrologer and 
ridiculed Partridge and his fellows as ignorant pretenders 
to the art. The first of his predictions is the most famous, 
and, indeed, it is the gist of the whole satire. With 
splendid audacity he actually specified the day and the 
hour when, as he foretold. Partridge was to die : — 

My first Prediction is but a trifle ; yet I will mention it, to 
show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to Astrology are in 
their own concerns : it relates to Partridge the Almanack 
maker; I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own 
rules ; and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March 
next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever ; therefore I advise 
him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time. 

This prediction Swift follov/ed up in a second paper, 
purporting to be a letter to a lord from a revenue officer 
and to describe the accomplishment of Bickerstaff's pre- 
diction. Here an account was given of Partridge's last 
moments and of his repentance for the injuries he had 
done and the frauds he had perpetrated. " I am a poor 
ignorant fellow," he exclaims to the person who makes 
the report, " bred to a mean trade ; yet I have sense 
enough to know that all pretences of foretelling by 
Astrology are deceits." And he adds, sighing, " I wish 
I may not have done more mischief by my physic, than 
by astrology ! although I had some good receipts from 



46 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

my grandmother, and my own compositions were such 
as I thought could, at least, do no hurt." 

Partridge of course protested furiously in his almanac 
for 1709. But Swift took advantage of his anger to write 
still another paper, in which he proved that Partridge must 
undoubtedly be dead, as he had predicted. 

Literary historians have probably exaggerated the effect 
of Swift's satires. They may have had some influence 
with educated people, who were only too much given 
to relying on astrological predictions, but they did not 
change the character of the popular almanacs in England. 
Throughout the eighteenth century and well into the 
nineteenth these continued to go on in their old course, 
though, as we have seen, the principal almanac of New 
England contemned such fooleries. 

Partridge's and Gadbury's almanacs continued to be 
published, with no essential change in their character, 
long aftei' the death of their founders. The Company 
of Stationers, who owned the copyrights, were unwilling 
to suppress them or to modify their contents, for the sales 
were enormous and the populace was wedded to its idols. 
In 1827 the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowl- 
edge took a hand in the matter by publishing the first 
number of the British Almanac (for 1828). This was a 
direct challenge to the Stationers. In a preface the 
editors attack the two most popular almanacs of the 
day, Moore's and Partridge's, for their charlatanry. 
The object of the new publication was to educate the 
public taste and intelligence. The British Almanac was 
successful at the very outset, and it is still issued. At 
first the price was two shillings and threepence, for there 
was a stamp duty of fifteen pence on every almanac — 
a tax which brought in more than thirty thousand pounds 
a year. In 1835, when the duty had been abolished, the 
size of the book was increased and the price was put down 



ASTROLOGY 47. 

to a shilling. The effect of respectable competition was 
marked. The Stationers changed the character of their 
almanacs, and Moore's, which is still published, is no 
longer a monument to ancient delusions. With the issue 
of 1870 the British Almanac itself passed into the hands of 
the Stationers' Company. 

It must not be inferred that astrological almanacs no 
longer circulate in England. There are two rival publica- 
tions which are as absurd as anything that the dark ages 
could produce, — Zadkiel's and Raphael's. 

Both Zadkiel and Raphael take pride, from year to 
year, in pointing out what they call the fulfilment of their 
predictions. Since these works are not much known in 
this country, the reader may be diverted by an extract 
from Zadkiel's Almanac for 1903, designated as the 
" seventy-third yearly edition." It will be observed that 
there is much vagueness in the predictions and consider- 
able license of interpretation in the fulfilment. 

FULFILLED PREDICTIONS. 

END OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA. 

Predictions. Fulfilment. 

"The SUN shines once again In the spring quarter of 1902, 

on Old England after the storms the negotiations for peace were 

and tempests of the last two begun in April, and the submis- 

years." sion of the Boers was made on 

"O in T. — We shall se- the3ist of May, when the Treaty 
cure peace by showing our ene- was signed by the five Boer 
mies that we are prepared for leaders at 10.30 p.m., at Pre- 
war." toria ; just before Jupiter be- 

" Should peace be preserved, came stationary in Aquarius 

as it should be if only our Gov- 17° 15' in the mid-heaven of 

ernment be resolute as well as the horoscope of London, 
clever in diplomacy, our foreign 
trade will increase." — Alma- 
nac, 1902, pp. 5, II, 56. 



48 



THE OLD FARMERS ALM-\NACK 



THE CORONATION. 



Predictions. 

"SUN enters Cancer, June 
22nd. — At London, Venus is 
culminating. The elevation of 
Venus is of happy omen for 
the Monarch, vand promises a 
splendid Coronation attended 
with great martial pomp, and 
public rejoicing in earnest." — 
Almanac, 1902, p. 59. 

" The 23rd of June brings a 
crisis." — Ibid., p. 21. 

" Mars in the ascendant of 
London, in opposition to L^ra- 
nus. I trust that no serious 
accident will mar the public 
festivities at the opening of this 
month" (July). — Ibid. p. 23. 



Fulfilment. 

The Coronation took place 
in the summer quarter, as fore- 
told, viz., on the 9th of August, 
having been postponed from 
the 26th of June, owing to the 
alarming illness of the King. 
In the Abbey the splendour of 
the scene was magnificent. The 
public rejoicing at His Majesty's 
recovery was indeed earnest and 
heartfelt. 

On the 23 rd of June the King 
became seriously ill, and the 
operation was performed on the 
following day — when it was 
announced that the Coronation 
was postponed, to the conster- 
nation of the people of the em- 
pire. This most unfortunate 
accident marred the brilliant 
festivities planned and begun 
for the end of June and the 
beginning of Tulv. 



There was of course much ridicule of astrological and 
other prophecies. Thus Rabelais, in his Pantagrueline 
Prognostication : — 

No matter what these crazy astrologers of Louvain and Nurem- 
berg and Tubingen and Lyons tell you, do not believe that in this 
year there will be any other governor of the universe than God the 
creator. 



This year the blind will see only a very little ; the deaf will not 
hear verv well ; the dumb will not have much to sav ; the rich 



ASTROLOGY 49 

will fare rather better than the poor and the well than the sick ; 
several sheep, oxen, pigs, birds, chickens, and geese will die.^ 

In 1697, Poor Robin's Almanack, in deliberate burlesque 
and with an express reference to Rabelais, makes certain 
salutary suggestions for January: — 

This Month is the best of all the twelve (saith the ingenious 
Rabe/ais) to pick the lock of a Cup-board, to steal a bottle of 
wine out of it. But yet Reader, if thou hast money, let me ad- 
vise thee rather to go to the Tavern, call for a quart of Canary, 
and wish Poor Robin some part of it, to heat hi[m] within this cold 
Weather ; but above all, let Scholars have a great care of drink- 
ing the best Wine, for of good Wine they cannot make bad Latin. 
The Weather being so cold, hot broths in a morning are very com- 
fortable : Pope Alexander by the advice of a Jew his Physician 
did so, and lived till his dying day, in despight of all his enemies. 

In the same year Poor Robin characterizes December, 
with a hit at the decline of old-fashioned hospitality : — 

This Month will be more Employment for Cooks and Fiddlers, 
than for Reapers and Haymakers ; but how if there should be 
more Cooks than there will be Employment for 'em ; truly, as 
the Stars seem posited, it is a thing very much to be fear'd : And 
the Phisicians do assure us that very few poor Men this Chrismas 
will get Surfeits by over-eating 'emselves at rich Mens Tables, and 
the reason thereof is, because my Lady Pride hath turn'd good 
Houskeeping out of doors ; instead of a Cook, a Butler, a Groom, 
a Huntsman ; and a 2 or 3 brace of neat-handed serving-Men, 
maintaining a Butterfly Page, a stiff swearing Coach-man, and a 
tawdry Skip-kennel, pulling down the Larder, locking the Buttry 
door, and reducing the Kitchin to the bigness of a Cobler's Stall. 
A blessed Reformation. 

A middle ground is occupied by Woodward's almanac 
for 1690, which, though it cannot deny the influence of the 

1 Chaps. I and 3. 
4 



50 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Stars in their courses, is inclined to think that free-born 
Englishmen are less subjected to them than foreigners : — 

SAPIENS DOMINABITUR ASTRIS. 

Altho the Stars have an Influence on all Persons and things 
sublunary, yet as we are Englishmen and Christians, let us live so 
after the Dictates of the Divine Will, that the Stars may have no 
Power over us, as to Evil ; for they only incline, not compel. 
Besides, we inhabit a Land that flows with Milk and Honey, are 
govern'd by a glorious Monarch and his Consort of our own Re- 
ligion, have the blessed Gospel florishing more than in any King- 
dom of Europe, just Laws to punish Offenders ; wherefore if we 
live not in Tranquillity or Union one with another, can we expect 
anything but the great Indignation of Heaven, by provoking 
God's severe Displeasure against us for our Treachery and back- 
sliding — ? But Thanks be to God we have a prospect of so 
well-settled a Government, that Popish Contrivers shall not have 
Power to alter for the future.^ 

Mr. Thomas, as we have seen, was no astrologer. But 
he was a humorist, and now and then he uses the formulas 
of the star-gazing prophets to good purpose, as in the fol- 
lowing note from the Calendar for October, 1803 : — 

Now is an excellent time for old bachelors to visit old maids, 
as the sun is in Libra, which promises a balance of affection to the 
wedded pair. 

February, being a short month, afforded room for such 
jocose remarks at the foot of the column of days, par- 
ticularly when leap-year came round. Thus, in 1804, we 
read : — 

It is hoped that old maids and bachelors will enjoy much satis- 
faction this year. 

1 Daniel Woodward, Ephemeris Absoluta, London, 1690. 



ASTROLOGY 5 1 

In 1808 the same hope is expressed, but with a good 
deal more confidence: — 

It is expected that the hearts of bachelors and old maids will 
beat in unison this year. 

More satirical are the verses appended to the same month 
in 1809: — 

Thy changing weather like a modish wife, 
Thy winds and rains forever at a strife ; 
So Termagant, awhile her thunder tries, 
And when she can no longer scold — she cries. 

In 1 8 10 we are brought back to the domain of sentiment 
in a reminiscence of a pretty passage in Virgil's eclogue : — 

The bashful lover sues in vain 
The favours of the fair to gain ; 
She flies, yet flying hopes the swain 
Quickly her footsteps will detain. 

In 1812, which is leap-year, we have another jest about 
those who have postponed marriage beyond their first 
youth : — 

There will be this year many conjunctions and fewer oppositions 
than usual, between bachelors and old maids. 

This pleasant method of filling up the February column 
was followed for a good many years. A few more speci- 
mens may be given : — 

Ye lasses be prudent and wise, 

Nor listen to Neddy's false voice ; 
A happiness pure if ye prize. 

Let merit alone claim your choice. (1821.) 



52 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 



TO MARRIED LADIES. 

Whatever is your lot in life, 

Be still the good and loving wife ; 

Content with little, meek with riches, 

But let the Husband vif^x the breeches. (1823.) 

A SENTIMENT. — " The married and single. Wives, as they 
are — maids, as they would be — bachelors, as they should be." 
(1828.) 

PREDICTIONS. 

He who marries this year will run a great risk — that is, if he 
does it in a hurry — of finding the angel of light to be one of 
darkness. (1832.) 

LEAP-YEAR. 

Tradition this year doth report, 

That maidens are allowed to court. (1836.) 

A PREDICTION. 

Much this year will be done 

That many will wish undone. (1840.) 

Bachelors and maids, don't despair, 

Time has brought about leap year. (1844.) 

This is truly a rough-hewn couplet and it comes near 
marking the close of an epoch, for in 1846 the practice 
in question was abandoned and the column was filled by 
lengthening the last few lines of the Farmer's Calendar. 



THE MAN OF THE SIGNS 

ONE of the notable things about the Farmer's Alma- 
nack is that, from the very beginning, it has ex- 
cluded from its pages the picturesque image known 
as the Man of the Signs, or the Moon's Man. 

The figure of a man, surrounded by the twelve Signs of 
the Zodiac, each referred to some part of his body by 
means of a connecting line or a pointing dagger, is still 
seen in some almanacs and was once regarded as indispen- 
sable. The Anatomy, as it was often called, was a graphic 
representation, intelligible alike to the educated and to 
those who could not read, of a vitally important principle 
in medicine and surgery. Each sign of the zodiac " gov- 
erned " an organ or part of the body, and, in selecting a 
day to treat any ailment, or to let blood, it was necessary 
to know whether the moon was or was not in that sign. 
In the language of the Kalender of Shepherdes, as pub- 
lished by Pynson in 1506, "a man ought not to make 
incysyon ne touche with yren y^ membre gouerned of any 
sygne the day that the mone is in it for fere of to grete effn- 
syon of blode that myght happen, ne in lykewyse also 
when the sonne is in it, for the daunger & peryll that 
myght ensue." Pynson's Kalender of Shepherdes is some- 
thing more than its name implies. It is a rather large com- 
pendium, affording not only all manner of astronomical 
and astrological lore, but information on health, religion, 
physiognomy, and pastoral life. It was originally written 
in French, and the oldest known edition (though not, ap- 
parently, the first) appeared at Paris in 1493. It was im- 



54 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

mensely popular. There were no less than twenty other 
editions in French before 1600, not to speak of those 
printed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
There were two distinct translations into English, and 
numerous editions.^ The work, then, was authoritative, 
and we may accept its precepts without hesitation as 
giving a correct idea of what men believed. 

The Kalender of Shepherdes is not content with one 
illustration of the dominion of the planets. Besides that 
just mentioned there are two more, — another body and a 
skeleton. The body is intended to exhibit the position 
of the veins, and is accompanied by directions for bleed- 
ing. The skeleton is encircled by the planets, each with a 
label and a line or ribbon attaching it to the central figure. 
Thus over the man's head is the Sun, with a label " Sol 
the heart" and a ribbon attaching the sun to that place in 
the skeleton where the heart would be. The sun, we are 
to understand, " hath myght and domynacyon " over the 
heart. 

Most almanacs, however, are satisfied with a single 
figure — that of the man surrounded by the zodiacal beasts 
— the Homo SigJiorum or "Man of the Signs." Who 
invented the figure is a question. The conjecture of 
Halliwell ^ that it originated with Petrus de Dacia, a Danish 
astronomer and mathematician who was Rector of the 
University of Paris in 1326, is apparently without founda- 
tion;^ Peter compiled tables for determining the moon's 
place, but there is no evidence that he was an artist. The 
Moon's Man is common in manuscript calendars of the 
fourteenth century, and may be considerably older. There 

1 See the edition by H. Oskar Sommer, London, 1892, Critical Intro- 
duction. 

2 Essay on Early Almanacs, in Companion to the British Almanac 
for 1839, p. 56. 

3 See G. Enestrom, Swedish Academy, Stockholm, Ofversigt af Fbrhand- 
lingar, 1S85, No. 3, pp. 15 ff., No. 8, pp. 65 ff; 18S6, No. 5, pp. 57 ff. 



THE MAN OF THE SIGNS 55 

is a succinct statement of the doctrine of which the Homo 
Signomm is merely a pictorial representation in the famous 
astronomical poem of Manilius, which dates from the be- 
ginning of the Christian era, and the Roman poet was of 
course merely borrowing from earlier Greek sources. 

Accipe divisas hominis per sidera partes, 
Singulaque in propriis parentia membra figuris, 
In quis praecipuas toto de corpore vires 
Exercent. Aries caput est ante omnia princeps 
Sortitus, censusque sui pulcherrima colla 
Taurus, et in Geminis aequali brachia sorte 
Scribuntur connexa humeris, pectusque locatum 
Sub Cancro est, laterum regnum scapulaeque Leonis ; 
Virginis in propriam descendunt ilia sortem; 
Libra regit clunes, et Scorpios inguine gaudet; 
Centauro femina accedunt, Capricornus utrisque 
Imperat et genibus, crurum fundentis Aquari 
Arbitrium est, Piscesque pedum sibi iura reposcunt.^ 

These verses are translated in hexameters which have 
escaped the notice of all students of English metre, in " A 
New Almanacke and Prognostication, for the yeare of our 
Lord God 1628. By Daniel Browne, wilier ^ to the Mathe- 
matickes, and teacher of Arithmeticke, and Geometry:" 

?l?cali anU face Aries, nrcftc anti tiiroatc Taurus ijpijcilSctli, 
STo Gemini tl)' armcs, to Cancer brest stomadtE anO lunges : 
2ls Leo rules i\\z backe anU Ijcart, so Virgo Jeligfjtetlj 
En guts anU faellg : rcigncs anti logncs Libra retatnetfj. 
Scorpio tl}c secrets anti bla&tiri- cljallcngcti) : of tljtgfjes 
©nig Sagitarius the goucrnour is: Capricornus 
SCljc knees as subtects Both guiH, but Aquarius Ijoltetfj 
5ri)c legs : anlJ Pisces maintainc \\\t fret to be their right. 

Through Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer of the 
second century after Christ, the doctrine came down to 
the middle ages and so to modern times. Thus we find 

1 Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, ii, 453 ff. 

2 Misprint for well-wilier. 



56 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

it in Chaucer's treatise on the Astrolabe, which he wrote 
as an elementary text-book of astronomy for his little son 
Lowys (or Lewis) : " Everich of thise twelve signes hath 
respect to a certein parcelle of the body of a man, and 
hath it in governance ; as Aries hath thyn heved, and 
Taurus thy nekke and thy throte, Gemini thyn armholes 
and thyn armes, and so forth." ^ Chaucer says nothing 
of the Anatomy, the Man of the Signs, but it was well 
known in his day, and it is not unlikely that he would have 
described it fully if he had not left his book unfinished. 

As time went on, the theory of a close relation between 
man's body and the signs of the zodiac fell into disrepute, 
and the Anatomy became a laughing stock. In 1609 
Thomas Dekker, the dramatist and pamphleteer, pub- 
lished a burlesque called The Ravens Almanacke, to 
which, according to custom, he prefixed the figure of the 
Homo Signorum, with the usual title " The Dominion of 
the Moone in Mans body." This is his humorous com- 
ment: "At the beginning of euerie Almanacke, it is the 
fashion to haue the body of a man drawne as you see, 
and not onely baited, but bitten and shot at by wilde 
beasts and monsters." The image, he says, is called " the 
Man of the Moone, or the Moones Man, or the Man to 
whom the Moone is mistris." ^ Dekker's jest, oddly enough, 
was revived by Josh Billings, who can hardly have been 
aware of its previous vogue, in his comic publication the 
Old Farmer's Allminax, which appeared for the first 
time in 1870: — 

SIGHNS OV THE ZODIAK. 

The undersighned iz an Amerikan brave, in hiz grate tragick 
akt OV being attaked bi the twelve constellashuns. — (May the 
best man win.^ 

1 Part i, § 21 ; Skeat's Oxford Edition, III, 187. 

2 The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Grosart, IV, 179-80. 



THE MAN OF THE SIGNS 57 

Then follows the figure, with an indescribably droll par- 
ody on the regular directions for its use : — 



KEY TEW THE ABUV PERFORMANCE.-^ 

Tew kno exakly whare the sighn iz, multiply the day ov the 
month bi the sighn, then find a dividend that will go into a 
divider four times without enny remains, subtrakt this from the 
sighn, add the fust quoshunt tew the last divider, then multiply 
the whole ov the man's boddy bi all the sighns, and the result 
will be jist what yu are looking after. 

In 1657 Bishop Bramhall makes an ingenious applica- 
tion of the Anatomy in his controversy with Hobbes the 
philosopher. He is arguing for free will and objects to 
Hobbes's theory of necessity on the ground that it lowers 
the dignity of human nature: — 

T. H. maketh him [man] to be in the disposition of the 
second causes : sometimes as a sword in a man's hand, a mere 
passive instrument ; sometimes like *' a top, that is lashed " 
hither and thither "by boys " ; sometimes like " a football," which 
is kicked hither and thither by every one that comes nigh it. . . . 
Surely this is not that man that was created by God after His 
own image, to be the governor of the world, and lord and 
master of the creatures. This is some man that he hath borrowed 
out of the beginning of an almanac, who is placed immovable in 
the midst of the twelve signs, as so many second causes. If 
he offer to stir, Aries is over his head ready to push him, and 
Taurus to gore him in the neck, and Leo to tear out his heart, 
and Sagittarius to shoot an arrow in his thighs.^ 

The almanac-makers of the seventeenth century were 
sorely perplexed about the " misshaped anatomy," as the 

1 Castigations of Mr. Hobbes his last Animadversions, Works, Oxford, 
1844, IV, 417. 



58 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

poet Cleveland called it.^ None of them put any con- 
fidence in it, but all of them wanted to sell their books, 
and the people clamored for the time-honored monstrosity. 
Now and then we find a versified apology. Thus Edward 
Pond, in 1633, admitted that he had inserted the caricature 
for business purposes only : — 

THE ANATOMIE. 

Should I but dare t' omit the Anatomie, 
Which long enough hath gul'd my country friend, 
He with contempt would straight refuse to buy 
This book, and 't is no Ahnanack contend. 
Ask him its use, he 'le say he cannot tell ; 
No more can I : yet since he loves "t so well, 
I 'le let it stand, because my Book should sell.^ 

Poor Robin's Almanack for 1697 is equally frank and 
more humorous : — 

Here is presented to your Eye 

The Figure of th' Anatomy, 

For where that this Gue-Gaw doth lack, 

Some will not buy that Almanack : 

Then stand here that my Book may sell, 

Though for what Use we cannot tell. 

The same embarrassment was felt by astronomers in 
America. Samuel Clough, in the New England Almanack 
for 1703, expressed himself with more vigor than metrical 
correctness : — 

The Anatomy must still be in 

Else th' Alvianack's not worth a pin : 

For Country-men regard the Sign 

As though 'T were Oracle Divine. 

But do not mind that altogether, 

Have some respect to Wind and Weather. 

1 "All other forms seem in respect to thee 
The almanack's misshaped anatomy." 

(The Hetacomb, verses S9-90.) 
- See S. Briggs, The Essays, Humor and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, 
Cleveland, 1891, p. 61. 



THE MAN OF THE SIGNS 59 

Here the reader is warned not to trust the oracle too 
much. So in Poor Will's Almanack for 1797,^ we have 
"The Anatorry of Man's Body, as said to be governed by 
the Twelve Constellations," with the conventional rule for 
its interpretation and use ; but there follows immediately a 
caveat in solemn prose against taking it too seriously. 

Dr. Nathaniel Ames, of Dedham, ignored the Anatomy 
in the first two numbers of his Almanac (1726-28), and 
this is the more noteworthy since he was, at the outset, 
avowedly astrologistic. In his first issue he speaks of an 
eclipse of the moon in terms that remind us of Edmund in 
King Lear: "This Eclipse of the Moon happens so near 
the Great Benevolent y///?zVr;', the Efi"ects 't is hop'd will not 
be ill." And in that for 1728 he is still more outspoken : — 

OF THE ECLIPSES THIS YEAR, 1728. 

The first of these Eclipses (moon) is Celebrated in 6 de- 
grees of Virgo, the second Sign of the earthy Triplicity, which 
(authors say) portends the Scarcity of Fruit and Corn. 

The second of these Eclipses, viz : That of the Sun on the 
28th of February happens in 20 degrees of Pisces, the House 
of Jupiter, and Exaltation of Venus : learned Authors affirm, 
when Jupiter bears Rule, and is Lord of an Eclipse (as in this 
he is) he signifies Glory, Fertility, Tranquillity, Peace and 
Plenty; and such as are signified by Jupiter, especially Ecclesias- 
tical Persons do flourish and live in great Estimation. The Laws 
are well Executed, and many Upright and Just Judges are very 
Active for the Publick Good ; new Customs or Privileges, new 
Corporations, new Honours, &c., are now most happily conferr'd 
upon People in general ; And these are the Natural Portends of 
Jupiter when he bears Rule in an Eclipse. 

Astrologer though he was, Ames hoped to avoid the 
absurdity of perpetuating the Homo Signorum. But in 

1 Philadelphia : Printed for and Sold by Joseph Crukshank. 



60 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

1729 he yielded, rather reluctantly, to the pressure of 
public opinion, and inserted the image. His reluctance — 
his feeling that this was a superstitious ornament, un- 
worthy of the serious attention of a " student in physick 
and astronomy," — is evinced by the roughhewn verses that 
accompany the picture : — 

The Blackmoor may as eas'ly change his Skin, 
As Men forsake the ways they 'r brought up in ; 
Therefore I 've set the Old Anatomy, 
Hoping to please my Country men thereby, 
But where 's the Man that 's born & lives among, 
Can please a Fickle throng ? ^ 

Ames's figure is excessively ugly, but not original. 
He had it from his predecessor, the almanac ** printed and 
sold by B. Green and J. Allen in Boston," appearing as 
Clough's New-England Almanack in 1703, afterwards edited 
by Thomas Robie, Daniel Travis, and others. 

The hithering and thithering of New England almanacs 
with regard to the Man of the Signs is excessively curious. 
In Isaiah Thomas's Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode- 
Island, New-Hampshire and Vermont Almanack for 1782, 
there is an elaborate Anatomy. Yet this is a somewhat 
rationalistic number after all. It contains a skeptical Es- 
say on Conjuration and Witchcraft, in which, after speak- 
ing of various wonders of the invisible world, the author 
remarks : " We are not to believe such reports, unless the 
evidence of the truth of the fact be equal to the strangeness 
of the thing." In 1783 the Anatomy appears again, but in 
1784 it is omitted, with the note " The Anatomy of Man's 
body, &c. inserted last year." In 1785 we find the figure; 
but not in 1786 or 1788. In 1789, 1790, and 1791 it re- 
appears in much handsomer form. In 1792 it is omitted. 
And so on. After 1800 there seems to have been a reac- 

1 See Briggs, as above, pp. 47, 57, 60. 



THE MAN OF THE SIGNS 6 1 

tion in favor of the Anatomy. It appears, with only one 
break, from 1801 to 1807. About this time some ahnanacs 
actually gave the mystic figure a place of honor on the 
combined cover and title-page; so Smith and Forman's 
New- York and New- Jersey Almanac for 1809 and 1810. 

No wonder the people were attached to the Anatomy. 
It was not merely a fetich, though there was a touch of 
fetichism in the reverence paid it. It was a graphic sum- 
ming up of the whole doctrine of astrological medicine. 
And medicine, for many centuries, had been permeated 
with astrology, both in theory and practice. Chaucer's 
physician in the Canterbury Tales always selected a "for- 
tunate ascendant" in treating his patients, — that is, he 
observed the condition of the heavens, constructed a 
horoscope, and acted accordingly. Otherwise his ministra- 
tions might do more harm than good. Paracelsus declared, 
we are told, that no physician ought to write a prescription 
without consulting the stars. The science of one age 
becomes the superstition of the next, but what the Anatomy 
typified remained the doctrine of the learned for centu- 
ries, and when at last it sank to the position of a " vulgar 
error " it retained its hold with a tenacity proportionate 
not only to its antiquity but to the high authority which 
it had so long enjoyed. It is much to Mr. Thomas's 
credit that he steadfastly refused to countenance a prev- 
alent superstition by admitting this time-honored effigy 
into his Almanac. 



ARTISTIC EMBELLISHMENT 

IN an editorial greeting to the Old Farmer's Almanack 
for 1903, the New York Sun comments appreciatively 
on the pictures which typify the different months. 
" Each month," says the Sun, " has its lines of poetry and 
its lifelike portrait of a sign of the zodiac. The Crab looks 
good enough to eat, and the tail on the horse of the Archer 
has a sweep, range and boldness that must recommend it 
to all farriers, blacksmiths and hostlers." ^ 

The figures of the signs which are thus deservedly com- 
mended, — as well as the portrait of Father Time, with his 
scythe and water-jar, which embellishes the title-page, — 
go back to 1853. In the preface to the Almanac for 
1852, the editor announces a change in the artistic adorn- 
ment of his venerable annual. " For about forty years 
past," he writes, "we have used, upon our Title-page and 
Calendar-pages, wood-cuts or engravings done when the 
art of engraving was not as advanced as now ; but as time, 
the press, and constant use have worn down the surface of 
the cuts, we intend, in our next number, to insert new and 
better engravings of the same subjects, which we hope will 
please all." And in 1853 the pledge is redeemed: — 
" Agreeably to promise," says the editor, " we have some- 
what changed our appearance by the engravings, which we 
insert in this number, but though 'Father Time* may be 
burnished up, and improved in his outward adornings, his 
heart is in the right place, and we trust that we shall never 
forget the good old times of * Lang Sync,' that we have had 
together ; and though the signs of the constellations may 

1 New York Sun, Nov. i, 1902. 



^^^.gS!^ 



H 



y 



No. XV III. 



THE 



v„^^4. 



FARMER'S ALMANACK. 

CALCULATED ON A NEW AND IMPROVED PLAN, 
fOU THE YEAR OF OUR L R Dy 




Being the Second after Bissextile or LEAP-YEAR,andThir. 
ty-fourth of the Indkpbndknch of America. 

Fitted t» tie Toxvn of BOSTON, but -will ferve for any of the adjoining Skttet. 

Containing, befides the large number of Aftronomical Cal- 

cUlatioQs, and the Farmer's Calendar for every month in the year, 

a» great a variety as any other Almanack, of 

N^eWj UJeful^ and Entertaining Matter, 



BY ROBERT B. THOMAS. 




THOU great first cause, thy hand divine did raise 
This solid Earth, and spread tlie flowing seas ; 
Did make the Sun in central glory shine, 
And every planet round his orb incline ; 



^OSrOJV .-^Printed for JOHN WEST & Co. 

Proprietors of tlie Copy- Right ; 

Aud for lale af their Bookftore, No. 75, Corr.bill, and by moA other Book- 

fcUer^sin BofioH^Sahin, Nnvburyf>ort, &c. by the Author in Weji Boyl' 

JJon, and by other Bookfetlers and Traders in Ne-wEmgland. 

[Price 9 dollars per grofs, 87^ crnit per dozen, and 12| cmti fiufile. 



s 



*^3^ E. G. House, Printer^ No. 5, Court Street. _, /a^^^ 



ARTISTIC EMBELLISHMENT 63 

be a little more artistic, too, in their appearance, they are 
the same signs of pleasant months, and joyous hours, spent 
together in many a happy home, and by many a cheerful 
fireside." The new cuts are believed to be the work of 
Hammatt Billings, and were originally engraved by Nichols. 
They have indeed " pleased all," as the editor ventured to 
hope, and there seems to be no reason why they should 
ever be changed so long as the seasons continue the same 
and the zodiac remains in fashion with the astronomers. 

The set of figures that preceded the woodcuts ascribed 
to Billings began to appear in 1809, and were not materially 
altered until 1853, though they were occasionally rein- 
graved, as small variations, particularly in the length of 
Father Time's beard, make manifest. They were pretty 
grotesque, though not without life, as may be seen from 
the facsimiles. 

From 1800 to 1808 the artistic department of the Alma- 
nac was in a state of experimental ferment. Before 1800 
there were no cuts at the heads of the calendar pages, each 
month being characterized in a short piece of verse. In 
1793 there was no illustration on the title-page; but a 
figure of a man in knee-breeches ploughing, with a rural 
scene in the background, appeared the next year, and was 
retained until 1797 (see p. 25), when it was replaced by 
a woman seated, with emblems of agriculture at her feet 
and a ploughing scene in the distance. This continued to 
be the adornment of the title-page, though with some vari- 
ation in detail, until Father Time ousted it in 1809. Mean- 
time, in 1800, cuts had been introduced to reinforce the 
verses at the head of each month. These were, until 1804, 
not the Signs of the Zodiac, but little scenes illustrative of 
the changing seasons or of the occupations appropriate to 
the month in question. Thus for January, we have two 
men, or a man and a boy, on the ice, one skating, the other 
whipping a top ; for February, cattle looking at the bleak 



64 



THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 



landscape ; for March, two boys, in high hats (one of which 
has blown off), on their way to school ; for April, a sower ; 
for May, an angler ; for June, a shepherd in the shade ; for 
July, a load of hay ; for August, a foot-passenger, with a 
pack on his back and a dog at his heels, striding along to 
gain the timely inn; in September, a reaping scene; in 
October, two hunters, resting in the wood ; ^ in November, 
a man driving a herd of cattle ; in December, a man 




January, iSoo 




August, 1800 

carrying home a great load of fagots. This method of 
representing the months belongs to a very old artistic tra- 
dition, as we shall see in a moment. Meantime we may 
complete our account of the cuts for the calendar by re- 
marking that from 1804 to 1808 there is, instead of the 
scenes just described, a series representing the signs of the 
zodiac in a rather peculiar way, — not as independent sym- 
bols, but as realistic figures with an environment of land- 

1 See also the facsimile of the Farmer's Calendar for October, iSoo, p. 81, 
below. 



ARTISTIC EMLELLISHMEXT 



65 



scape. Aquarius (for January) is an actual man pouring 
water into a stream; the Fishes (for February) have been 
caught and laid on the bank with their tails neatly tied to- 
gether; the Ram (for March) lies under a tree, with no 
suspicion that he is a zodiacal beast; the Twins (for May) 
are taking a walk in a field, with an altar on one side and 
a small New England house on the other, and one of them 
has a star on his cap to indicate that they are Castor and 
Pollux ; the Archer (for November) is plainly at home in 




May, 1S01-1S03 




December, 1804-1S08 

the midst of rugged scenery and defending himself against 
an invisible enemy. 

The method of designating the several months by pictures, 
whether of the zodiacal signs or of the occupations or 
labors of the year, is a very ancient and curious matter, 
which will repay a little consideration. As for the signs of 
the zodiac, we need not linger over them. Their origin is 
lost in antiquity, and it is enough for us to trace them back 
to the Greeks and Romans. The reader will find on page 
79 a picture of an Italian altar inscribed with a Farmer's 
Calendar in columns, each column headed by a figure of 

5 



66 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

the sign. An Athenian sacred calendar has also been pre- 
served, in which the months are separated by similar figures. 
On the page opposite is a more complicated illustration, 
which includes both the signs and the labors of the months. 
It is taken from the Kalender of Shepherdes, as published 
in 1503.1 

This figure is a compendious pictorial calendar. The cen- 
tral circle contains two figures, a woman with a nosegay, 
who represents warm weather, and a man sitting out-of- 
doors by a fire, who represents cold weather. In the second 
circle are the months, each typified by an appropriate 
scene : January, by a man slaughtering a boar ; February, 
by a man sitting at a table with a tankard before him ; 
March, by a woman warming her hands and feet at a fire; 
April, by a pruner at work ; May, by a lover and his lass 
out a-Maying; June, by a plowman; July, by a mower; 
August, by a reaper ; September, by a man with a mat- 
tock; October, by a man driving a horse; November, by 
a vintager; December, by a shepherd. If these occupa- 
tions do not suit our climate, we must remember that they 
were not designed for it, but rather for the south of Europe, 
for we are dealing with a very old set of conventional 
figures. In the outermost circle are the signs of the zodiac, 
each divided between two months. 

Illuminated calendars dating from Anglo-Saxon times 
preserve an interesting series of the labors of the months 
which continued, with some variations, through the middle 
ages " and even appears in the printed calendars and alma- 
nacs of the sixteenth century in England, Germany, and 
the Low Countries." 2 The killing of swine, which is in 
the Kalender of Shepherdes, was a favorite subject for 
November or December. It is found, for instance, on an 
old Norman font at Brookland, in Kent, on the archivolt of 

1 On this work see page 53, above. 

2 Thomas "Wright, Archaeological Album, London, 1845, P- 64- 















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The Circle of the Months 
(From the Kalender of Shepherdes, 1503) 



ARTISTIC EMBELLISHMENT 



67 



the great west doorway of St. Mark's Cathedral at Venice, 
at the side of the central doorway of the facade of the 
cathedral at Lucca, on the tympanum of the doorway of 
the monastery of St. Ursin, in France, on a capital in the 
Doge's palace at Venice, in a mosaic pavement at Piacenza 
and again at Aosta, in the famous paintings by Giotto in 
the great hall at Padua. A very vigorous example occurs 
in a fourteenth-century medallion of painted glass in Dews- 




January, 1809-1852 




November, since 1852 

bury Church, Yorkshire, which may have been meant as a 
type of the whole season of winter. The edge of the axe 
is turned backward, and the boar is tied by the snout to 
the stump of a tree.^ 

Such figurative representations of the months and 
seasons turn up everywhere, as the examples already 
given have doubtless suggested, from one end of Europe 
to the other. In introducing them into his Almanac Mr. 
Thomas was simply following the fashion of his time, 
^ Archaeologia, XLIV, plate V, opposite p. 178. 



68 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

but he was unconsciously attaching his little annual to a 
very venerable tradition. VVc must refrain from pursuing 
the subject, attractive as it is. The reader who wishes to 
know more will be able to satisfy his curiosity by con- 
sulting a learned article by Mr. James Fowler in the 
forty-fourth volume of the Archaeologia, the official publi- 
cation of the London Society of Antiquaries. 

Except for symbolical illustrations such as we have just 
considered, Mr. Thomas did not yield to the temptation 
to embellish his Almanac with engravings, for the occa- 
sional diagrams to elucidate eclipses and other astronomi- 
cal matters and the map of New England are not for show 
but for use. The first departure from this rule was when, 
in 1835, he yielded to the solicitations of his publishers 
and consented to let his portrait appear. 

Some of the early New England astronomers had less 
self-restraint, and tricked out their books with all manner 
of eccentric novelties. Ames does so with peculiar zest 
in his issue for 1772, which is advertised on the cover 
as " containing, besides what is usual in Almanacks, a 
Description of the Dwarf that lately made her Appearance 
in this Town; as also a curious Method of taking Wax 
and Honey without destroying the Bees." The dwarf was 
Miss Emma Leach, born in Beverly, " about 20 Miles 
distant from this town," in 17 19. The description is re- 
inforced by a very disagreeable cut on the cover. Besides 
this monstrosity, we have a large portrait of " J-n D-k-ns-n, 
Esq; Barrister at Law," that is John Dickinson (1732- 
1808) of the Continental Congress, who is described in 
the title as " The Patriotic American Farmer " and as one 
" who with Attic Eloquence, and Roman Spirit, hath 
asserted the Liberties of the British Colonies in America." 
Dickinson is resting his elbow on Magna Charta and holds 
in his hand a scroll inscribed " Farmer's Letters," — his 
well-known book in defence of freedom. The same num- 



ARTISTIC EMBELLISHMENT 69 

ber also exhibits a ridiculous full-length portrait of " Mrs. 
Catharine M'Caulay," the admired authoress, who is 
standing in a constrained attitude, holding a little bird 
(probably a canary) on her extended hand. 

Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack was also a sinner in 
this direction. It showed a penchant for savages — men 
and beasts. Thus in 1768 the cover exhibits a terrific 
picture of a family of Patagonian giants. Other numbers 
have figures of New Zealanders (1775), "the Orang 
Outang " (1769), and "an exact and elegant representa- 
tion of that Furious WILD BEAST " which ravaged the 
South of France in 1764 and 1765.^ 

The Wild Beast of the Gevaudan, as the creature was 
called from the district where its depredations were most 
extensive, appears to have been a hyena escaped from 
a travelling show. The contemporary accounts are obvi- 
ously exaggerated, for there was a veritable reign of 
terror in Languedoc. Still, if only half of what was 
reported is true, the situation was bad enough. The 
most sensational narrative, but one of the best authenti- 
cated, comes from Montpellier, Feb. 8, 1765 : — 

On the 12th ultimo the wild beast attacked seven children, 
five boys and two girls, none of whom exceeded eleven years of 
age. The beast flew at one of the boys ; but the three eldest 
of them by beating him with stakes, the ends of which were iron, 
obliged him to retire, after having bitten off a part of the boy's 
cheek, which he ate before them. He then seized another of 
the children ; but they pursued him into a marsh which was 
close by, where he sunk in up to his belly. By continually beat- 
ing him, they rescued their companion ; who, though he was 
under his paw for some time, received only a wound in his arm, 
and a scratch in the face. A man at last coming up, the 
creature was put to flight. He afterwards devoured a boy at 
Mazel, and, on the 21st, flew on a girl, who, however, escaped 
1 Bickerstaff for 1773. 



70 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

with some dangerous wounds. The next day he attacked a 
woman, and bit off her head. Captain Duhamel, of the dragoons, 
is in pursuit of him, and has caused several of his men to dress 
themselves in women's apparel, and to accompany the children 
that keep cattle. 

The bravery of the children was recognized by King 
Louis XV, who awarded four hundred livres to the eldest 
of the boys, who had particularly distinguished himself, 
and ordered three hundred to be distributed among his 
companions. The description of the beast printed in the 
St. James's Chronicle for June 6, 1765, along with a wood- 
cut, from which that in Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack was 
doubtless taken, is disquieting enough : — 

It is larger than a Calf of a year old, strongly made before, 
and turned like a Grayhound behind. His Nose is long and 
pointed, his Ears upright and smaller than a Wolf's, his Mouth 
of a most enormous size, and always wide open ; a Streak of 
Black runs from his Shoulders to the Beginning of his Tail. His 
Paws are very large and strong ; the Hair on his Back and Mane 
thick, bristly, and erect ; his Tail long and terminating in a Bush, 
like that of a Lion ; his Eyes small, fierce, and fiery. From this 
description it appears that he is neither a Wolf, Tiger, nor Hyena, 
but probably a Mongrel, generated between the two last, and 
forming, as it were, a new Species. 

The animal was killed in September, 1765, but not, 
we are gravely assured, until it had destroyed more than 
seventy persons.^ 

1 Mason Jackson, The Pictorial Press, its Origin and Progress, London, 
1885, pp. 206-13. 



MURDER WILL OUT 

AN almanac as conceived by Mr. Thomas should be 
an annual compendium of human interests. Now 
nothing is more interesting than Murder. Murder 
is the material of great literature, — the raw material, if you 
will, but is not raw material essential to production, as well in 
art as in manufactures? What distinguishes De Quincey's 
famous Postscript on certain memorable murders from 
the grewsome scareheaded " stories " of the purveyor for the 
daily press ? Surely not the matter ! The bare plot of the 
sublimest of Greek tragedies, the Agamemnon of ^schylus, 
finds its closest parallel in a horrible butchery in low life that 
occurred in New York a few years ago. Conventional 
phrases are always tiresome enough, but none is more so 
than that of " morbid curiosity " as applied to the desire 
to know the circumstances of a great crime. The phrase 
is like a proverb : it is only half true, though it masquer- 
ades as one of the eternal verities. Curiosity is natural; 
without it a man is a mere block, incapable of intellectual 
advancement. And curiosity about crime and criminals is 
no less natural, no further morbid — that is, diseased or 
abnormal — than that which attaches to any other startling 
event or remarkable personage. Like all other forms of 
curiosity, it may become morbid, and perhaps it is well to 
restrain it, — but that is not the question. 

On one point, at all events, all reasonable men will 
agree : The detection of murder is laudable and necessary. 
Nobody can be blamed for what everybody must feel, — 
an interest in the thousand ways in which murders come 



72 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

to light. The old theory was that this crime was so abomi- 
nable in God's sight that he would not suffer it to be 
concealed. As Chaucer says, in a deservedly famous 
passage : — 

O blisful God, that art so iust and trewe ! 
Lo how that thou biwreyest mordre alvvay ! 
Mordre wol otit ! that se we day by day. 
Mordre is so wlatsom ^ and abhominable 
To God, that is so iust and resonable, 
That he ne wol nat suffre it heled ^ be ; 
Though it abyde a yeer, or two, or three, 
Mordre wol out, this my conclusioun. 

God's Revenge against Murder was a famous seventeenth- 
century book. It was even held that the ordinary laws of 
nature were sometimes suspended or supplemented by 
miraculous intervention, if the guilty man could be re- 
vealed in no other way. 

With all this in view, we may fairly hold that Mr. Thomas 
would not have done his duty by his time if he had not 
given his readers a specimen of the countless anecdotes 
that illustrate our theme. Accordingly, it is with no small 
satisfaction that the philosophic observer of life and letters 
notes the following article in the Farmer's Almanack for 
1796: — 

Murders Strangely Discovered. 

IN the second year of the reign of King James I, one Anne 
Waters settling an unlawful love, or rather lust, on a young man 
in the neighbourhood ; and finding their frequent meetings were 
interrupted by her husband, they agreed to strangle him : which 
being done, they buried him under a dunghill, in the cow-house. 
The man being missed by his neighbours, and the woman arti- 
ficially dissembling her grief, and admiring what was become of 
him, all were at liberty to make their own conjectures ; but none 

1 That is, " loathsome." ^ xhat is, " hidden." 



MURDER WILL OUT 73 

suspected the wife of contributing to his absence, but assisted her 
inquiries after him. In this time one of the inhabitants of the 
village dreamed, " That his neighbour Waters was strangled, and 
buried under a dunghill in the cow-house ; " and, telling his dream 
to others, it was resolved the place should be searched by a con- 
stable ; which being done, Waters's corps was found ; and some 
other concurring suspicions appearing, the wife was apprehended , 
and, confessing the truth, was burnt, according to law in that case 
provided. 



PARTHENIUS, treasurer to Theodobert, King of France, hav- 
ing killed his dear friend, Ausanius, and his wife ; when no man ac- 
cused, much less suspected him guilty of such a crime, Providence 
so ordered the affair, that he discovered it himself after this strange 
manner. As he was taking his repose in bed, he suddenly cried out, 
"Help, help, or I am ruined to eternity; " and being demanded 
what made him in such a terrible fright, he, between sleeping and 
waking, answered, " That his friend Ausanius, and his wife, whom 
he had murdered long ago, summoned him to answer before the tri- 
bunal of God Almighty." Upon which words he was apprehended, 
and, upon conviction, stoned to death. 

A close parallel to the first of these stories is an item in 
the New England Journal for December i, 1729 :^ — 

Last week, one belonging to Ipswich came to Boston and re- 
lated, that, some time since, he was at Canso, in Nova Scotia ; and 
that on a certain day there appeared to him an apparition in blood 
and wounds, and told him, that at such a time and place, mention- 
ing both, he was murdered by one, who was at Rhode Island, and 
desired him to go to the said person, and charge him with the 
said murder, and prosecute him therefor, naming several circum- 
stances relating to the murder ; and that since his arrival from 
Canso to Ipswich, the said apparition had appeared to him again, 

1 As quoted by J. B. Felt, History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, 
Cambridge, 1834, pp. 208-9. 



74 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

and urged him immediately to prosecute the said affair. The 
abovesaid person, having related the matter, was advised and en- 
couraged to go to Rhode Island, and engage therein, and he 
accordingly set out for that place on Thursday last. 

While we are on this subject, it will not be improper to 
instance an article of New England belief which, if not 
actually credited when the Farmer's Almanack began to 
appear, in 1792, was in full force, and apparently recog- 
nized in legal procedure, as late as 1769. This was the 
superstition that the corpse of the victim would bleed when 
touched by the murderer, or even, it might be, on his mere 
approach. The ordeal by touch was once practised, it is 
safe to say, in every nation of Europe, and our forefathers 
of course brought the custom with them when they came 
to New England. 

In 1769 the young wife of Jonathan Ames, in the West 
Parish of Boxford, Massachusetts, died suddenly. The 
circumstances were suspicious. The body was disinterred, 
and the physicians who examined it found abundant evi- 
dence of poison. The marriage had not been happy. 
Ames's mother, who lived with him, had shown violent 
enmity towards her daughter-in-law, and had predicted her 
death in terms which, when recollected, seemed darkly 
significant. Both Mrs. Ames and her son were bidden 
to touch the body, but, guilty or not, they refused to sub- 
mit to the ordeal. The examination, according to the 
record, " gave great occasion to conclude that they were 
concerned in the poisoning," and they were committed to 
jail at Salem. There was no conclusive proof, however, 
and both were acquitted. Shortly after, they left the vil- 
lage and were lost sight of. The mystery of the Ames 
Murder was never cleared up.^ 

The antiquary who gives an account of this celebrated 

1 Sidney Perley, The Essex Antiquarian, 1898, II, i ff. 



MURDER WILL OUT 75 

case is of opinion that he is recording the only instance 
of the ordeal by touch in New England history. But he 
is mistaken. Two striking examples of the ordeal may be 
found in Winthrop's Journal. The first occurred in 1644, 
and is graphically narrated by the colonial governor. One 
Cornish, living at Agamenticus, " was taken up in the river, 
his head bruised, and a pole sticking in his side, and his 
canoe laden with clay found sunk. His wife (being a 
lewd woman, and suspected to have fellowship with one 
Footman) coming to her husband, he bled abundantly, 
and so did he also, when Footman was brought to him ; 
but no evidence could be found against him." ^ Footman 
was discharged, but the woman was convicted, though not, 
it seems, on the testimony of the ordeal of blood. In the 
second case, which came two years later, in 1646, confes- 
sion followed the ceremony, as must often have happened. 
A poor creature had killed her child, and " when she was 
brought before the jury, they caused her to touch the face 
of it, whereupon the blood came fresh into it," and she 
confessed the truth.^ This remarkable providence could 
not escape the all-recording Cotton Mather. He narrates 
it in his Magnalia, deriving his information from Winthrop's 
Journal. Characteristically enough, he improves the nar- 
rative. According to him the blood actually flowed anew, 
and did not merely " come fresh into the face," as Winthrop 
declares.^ 

Another instance from the same century is related by 
Cotton Mather in a passage which may serve as a speci- 
men of his best style : — 

Several Indians were made horribly drunk by the drink which 
the English had sold unto them. Returning home over a little 

1 Winthrop, ed. Savage, 1853, II, 258. 

2 The same, II, 369. 

3 Book vi, chap. 5, ed. 1853, II, 398. 



76 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

ferry, eight of them were drown'd (from December to March) 
one of their dead bodies came ashore very near the place where 
they had been supplied with their drink ; and lying on the shore, 
it bled so plentifully, as to discoloxir the water and sand about it. 
Upon which the considerate spectators thought of that scripture, 
" the stone shall cry out of the wall " against him that " gives liis 
neighbour drink." They thought there was a loud cry of " Blood \ 
blood! " against some wicked English in this matter.^ 

The murder of Sassamon, one of the most celebrated 
cases in the annals of Plymouth Colony, affords us another 
opportunity to observe the " ordeal of the bier." John 
Sassamon, who is said to have studied in the Indian School 
at Cambridge, was at one time King Philip's secretary. 
But he returned to his English allegiance and was appointed 
preacher to the Indians of Middleborough. In 1674, learn- 
ing of Philip's hostile preparations, Sassamon gave warning 
to the governor at Plymouth, though he was well aware 
that he did so at the risk of his life. Soon after his body 
was found in Assawomset Pond with the neck broken and 
other marks of violence upon it. Beyond question he had 
been put to death as a traitor by Philip's orders. Three 
Indians were convicted of the murder, and executed at 
Plymouth in June, 1675. The jury, according to custom, 
consisted of both white men and Indians, and there can be 
little doubt that the evidence was satisfactory. Increase 
Mather thinks it worth noting that when Tobias, who 
seems to have been the chief culprit, " came near the dead 
body, it fell a bleeding as fresh as if it had been newly 
slain, albeit it was buried a considerable time before that."^ 
If we may believe Cotton Mather's account of the trial, 
the experiment was tried more than once, and always with 
the same result.^ 

1 Magnalia, book vi, chap. 5, ed. 1853, II, 402. 

2 A Relation of the Troubles which have hapned in New-England, by 
reason of the Indians there, Boston, 1677, p. 75; Drake's ed. p. 236. 

3 Magnalia, book vii, chap. 6, § 5. 



MURDER WILL OUT 'JJ 

There is a large collection of similar cases in Pitcairn's 
Criminal Trials in Scotland.^ The most extraordinary is 
that of Joham Norkott in England (1628), as reported by 
an eminent lawyer. On this occasion the minister of the 
parish, "a very reverend person," testified (and his evi- 
dence was corroborated) that when the body was touched 
by the defendants thirty days after death, " the brow of 
the dead, which before was of a livid and carrion colour, 
begun to have a dew or gentle sweat arise on it, which 
increased by degrees, till the sweat ran down in drops on 
the face. The brow turned to a lively and fresh colour, 
and the deceased opened one of her eyes and shut it 
again : And this opening the eye was done three several 
times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger 
three times, and pulled it in again; and the finger dropped 
blood from it on the grass." 

1 Edinburgh, 1833, III, 191 £f. 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S 
CALENDAR 



FARMER'S Calendars are of respectable antiquity. A 
typical example from ancient Rome is preserved in the 
Naples Museum. It is inscribed on a block of marble 
about two feet and a half in height, and a foot and a half 
in length and breadth. Each face includes three months, 
and each month stands in a column by itself. The language 
is of course Latin, and the contents are very simple, as 
may be seen by the following translation of the calendar 
for May and September: — 



Month 
May. 
Days, 31. 
Nones on the 7th. 
Day, 14 hours. 
Night, 9 hours. 
Sun in Taurus. 
Under the protection 

of Apollo. 
Crops are hoed ; 
Sheep are sheared; 
Wool is washed; 
Bullocks are tamed; 
Vetch for fodder 

is cut; 
Crops 

are purified by lustrations. 
Sacrifices to Mercury 

and to Flora. 



Month 
September. 
Days, 30. 
Nones on the 5th. 
Day, 12 hours. 
Night, 12 hours. 
Equinox 

8th day before the Ka- 
lends of October. 
Sun in Virgo. 
Under the protection 

of Vulcan. 
Wine jars 

are sealed with pitch; 
Apples are gathered; 
Trees 

are dug round. 
Feast 

to Minerva. 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 79 

Another copy, on a three-sided block, with four months 
on each face, was also found at Rome.^ 

It will be noted that we have here a combination of 
an ordinary calendar with memoranda for farmers. There 
are a few simple astronomical facts of general importance, 
the appropriate occupations of the season are set forth, 
and the chief festival of the month closes the account. 



m 



MENS lb 
l^NVAJV 
DIES xi^Xt 
MONoV(Mr 
Dlf;VH6"RViill5- 
NQt K0RVJ1][- 

SOL 

CAfRlCORNO 

TVTELA 

(VNON] 5 

P^LVS 

A,qVITVR 

SA.HX 

HAP.VNDO 

C^ED1TVR 

oA.CB.(nCAN 

D13 
PENAlTIBVs 



FEBRAP, 
DtES XX vat 
WON' VINT 
DltSrtORXS 

5 

rVTELNEPTVNI 

SE&E.TE5 
SAXtVKITVR. 
VIWEARVK 
iVPERfKCO'LII 
1-UR.VWOINES 
INCeNOVMT 
FARE.NTALW 
LVPE.(VCAL(A 
CAIlACOUiAK 



MENS IS 

MART1Y5 

OIE.S XXXI 

MOMifPTIMA* 

DItS HOR Xlt 

NOX.HOR)C(( 

OLAQv/A.Rlo(AeqVlNOCTA« 

"' "" Vt([ KAL APK 

/tNt(U.PtDAMf( 
(NPMTINO 
PV rA.NTV R. 

ISIOliNAVIClUM 
SAjCRMAMVRII 

TRtALWATlb 



Is 









Id"-? 






Roman Farmer's Calendar 



The resemblance to the modern almanac needs no 
emphasizing. 

The miscellaneous precepts of the Almanac are likewise 
modern representatives of an ancient line. Many passages 
in Cato's treatise on Agriculture might be inserted in the 
Farmer's Calendar without our knowing the difference, 
except for a phrase or two that show some incompatibility 
of climate or custom. Here, for instance, are two extracts 

1 See Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, I, 358-9 ; Roniische 
Chronologie, 2d ed., 1859, p. 68; Real Museo Borbonico, II, ta. xliv. 



80 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

from Cato, closely translated. They are almost startling 
in their resemblance to our Almanac. Yet Mr. Thomas 
is no more likely to have consulted Cato's Latin treatise 
than Cato is to have imitated the Old Farmer. The con- 
nection is one of subject and temper, of obscure but 
immemorial tradition, not of literary imitation. 

Your oxen should be scrupulously looked after. Humor your 
ploughmen in some respects, so that they may be more willing to 
take care of the oxen. Have good ploughs and ploughshares. 
Don't plough rotten soil or drive a wagon or cattle over it. If 
you are not careful where you drive, you will lose three years' 
profit. Bed your sheep and oxen carefully, and let their hoofs 
be attended to. Protect sheep and cattle from the scab : this 
usually comes from insufficient feed or from exposure to the rain. 
Finish every job promptly ; for, in farming, if you are late about 
one thing, everything will be behindhand. If straw is scarce, 
gather oak-leaves and use them as bedding for your sheep and 
oxen.-^ Have a good large compost heap. Save manure care- 
fully ; when you carry it out [to the compost heap] cleanse it and 
pulverize it. Cart it out [on the land] in the fall. Loosen the 
soil round olive-trees in the fall and manure them. Cut the 
leaves of poplars, elms, and oaks in the season : store them up 
before they get too dry as fodder for sheep. After the fall rains 
sow turnips, fodder, and lupines. — Cato, De Agri Cultura, 
cap. 5, § 6. 

In rainy weather find something to do indoors. Don't be 
idle, but clean up about the buildings. Remember that expenses 
go on even if work stops. — Cap. 39, § 5. 

In Mr. Thomas's earlier numbers the Farmer's Calendar 
is almost exclusively given to short directions for work 
appropriate to the successive days of the month : that is, 

^ Compare the Farmer's Calendar for October, 1834 : — " [Leaves] are 
collected and laid in stables instead of straw, and thus make a very good 
litter for cattle." 



OCTOBER, Tenth Month. 1800. 




Fomana joyous jpreads her copious ftcrcs. 
And with her bldTinp glad* the fertile fhorc* ; 
The flcy fercnc sffume^ » deep'mng blue, 
And ev'ry grove puts on a motley hue. 



Gourts, AffieOgf Holidays^ 
Weather, is^c. ^c 



Fdrmer's Calendar. 



Cool breezes, \ Winter jppks Ihouid now 

Midd. tides. J. eclip. vifiblc.H'*^ gatLerc4oD, sw hard frofls 

Day brealcs 4h. 30m. ^ flat. '" "^ ' 



9 
10 
1 1 

12 

1514 

i6* 5 

17! 6 



Yard L rifcsioh. 40m. Cold 
ji7tlj Sun. part Trin. Jhrm. 
.(5 J) 7*5 or together. 

S.J.C. Len.C.RBoft.Mach. 

D Ay>o. Pteaf [Nani.Newbp. 

St-^ennis. ont for tt^ 

iVcry Jcnv tides, feofcu. 

I Clouds 

1 1 8th Sun. part Trin. up. 

I More faliiKg 

I iveather. 

7*8 fou- zh. 5m. 



i8|7 

20| 2 
2' 3 



22 

23 



24,^ 

25 7 

26 E 

27] 2 
28,3 
39 4 

3 I.I 6 



hurt thenvmuch ; rcnicA'c thofc 
underntth the tree, and pick off 
with the hand aJ) you ca» con- 
veniently before you (hake the 
tree. 

Harveft your Indian com 
without delay — the bird* ind 
itqujircls 1 am confident %viU. 
I Potatoes not dug thib week 
will be regrerifd next. 

Flax that was put a rotting 
laf) TOMith, look to of:en • the 
heavy dews at this fcafoD wiU 
rot it very fa ft, 

j Indulge not your dijldrcn in 
./ - - jetiting too much fruit, and ef- 

jQj:)f Fr.behead. 1 793. (^ ]) H'pecially ihai'which is hard und 
Ikirgoyjie fur. J 777.P/<»rt,'I/y7/.'""'Tnl1r.\v, if you would favc 

St. Luke. ©eclip. invifi.f ''^ ''"«^«>^ ^ ^''^t- 

loih Sun. paft. Trin. . ^ ^o, Ind.an corn he long, 

i,/. , . * ... ma heap before it be hulked. 

iH.gh tides. ham. Cyder f^nifh malong as foon 

IS.J.C.Taun.C PPoTtl I) Per las poffible ; to have it fine and 
J fels 6h. 10m. I^ighy r^u^/itlear, grind the apples the evc- 

! 'u.iuds. ,""'"K Ff""©"" »o 'ay'--^ it up, 

'Yard L. riles g\x. 30m. More'}^\ " ^ "''y =" 'Jj^ "'^['^"g 
L-. .^ ^ -'. and prefs it oui moderately. 

^ )\ JZ '' Plough for fummer fallow.. 

J20lh Sun. pau Trin. «iir/Aat every opportunity that lei- 
I a O 2/ [Sis. Sim. & Jude.ifwre will admit. 
jS.J.C.Camb.C.P.Tifb. oi/W, »"«*» i« general may row 
I and rain. '^^ gathered ni, and the land 

D _r AT\Aiixo L iraanured and hove np in ridees 

Pref. ADAMS born. l735-lfor the next year', c^p. ^ 
I Warm again. 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 8 1 

it is a calendar in the strictest sense, as may be seen in the 
facsimile on the opposite page. Only in the winter season, 
particularly in December, the farmer's holiday time, is a 
tendency visible toward longer and more general observa- 
tions, and even here these are pretty carefully kept within 
the limits of the calendar form. The farmer is bidden to 
square his accounts; he is encouraged to read aloud in the 
long evenings ; he is exhorted to remember the poor. 
Here, for instance, is the complete Farmer's Calendar for 
December, 1796. 

Very little can be done on a farm, this month to much profit. 

Lay in dry fuel, while the snow keeps off. 

Prepare and put in order, your sleds and sleighs as they will 
come in use very soon. 

Look well to your barns, and fatting heards. — " Live temper- 
ately, and spend frugally." 

The cultivation of the earth, ought ever to be esteemed, as the 
most useful and necessary employment in life. The food, and 
raiment, by which all other orders of men are supported, are 
derived from the earth. Agriculture is of consequence ; the art 
which supports, supplies, and maintains all the rest. 

" Remember, ye wealthy and affluent, the sons and daughters of 
affliction and distress ! Think of those, into whose shattered 
dwellings poverty enters to increase the inclemency and the 
horrours of the present season. Distribute bread to the hungry, 
and clothes to the naked." Discharge all the debts you have 
contracted the last year, with mechanics, shopkeepers, labourers, 
&c. before a new year commences. 

The advice to square accounts in December is often 
repeated, and the author shows a good deal of ingenuity 
in varying the form of his precepts. In the first number 
of the Almanac (that for 1793), the admonition is short 
and sharp: "Adjust your accounts; see that your ex- 
penditures do not exceed your incomes." Next year there 

6 



82 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

is a humane suggestion with respect to the distress that 
may result from neglecting to pay trifling debts : — " Settle 
with, and pay off your mechanics, labourers, and servants; 
for, though the sum[s] due to them be but small, they may 
be of more consequence to them than you may imagine." 

But Mr. Thomas was never inclined to give impracticable 
advice. Before long he began to feel that he had perhaps 
been rather uncompromising. It is all very well to say 
" Pay your bills and collect your debts," but both of these 
things may be difficult to accomplish at a given time. 
Hence, in 1798, he somewhat modifies the rigor of his 
doctrine, but without abandoning the excellent principle 
which he wishes to enforce : — 

Now to preserve a good understanding and continue in friend- 
ship with friends and neighbours, call upon all those you have 
had any dealing with the preceding year, and make a complete 
settlement; pay them off, if convenient, if the balance be in 
their favour — if in yours and they find it not convenient to pay, 
put it to the new account and pass receipts. By practising this 
method you will not only be able to ascertain your neat income, 
but prevent those disagreeable altercations and petty law-suits 
which take place too often between man and man from a delay 
of settlement. 

" Scoring charges up " comes in for a touch of good- 
natured satire in the Almanac for 1806 (December) : — 

There is little to be done this month except to enjoy the fruit 
of your past labour ; but in the first place make a settlement of 
accounts with all. I trust you have continually kept an account 
book ; if not, obtain one immediately, and depend no longer on 
your memory, nor on promiscuous chalks, marks and scratches 
about the walls of your house. 

Before long Mr. Thomas discovered that by a rigid 
adherence to his first scheme in the arrangement of the 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 83 

Farmer's Calendar, this column, which was one of the 
most original features of his annual, and which had much 
to do with its great and immediate popularity, would 
become intolerably monotonous. With his usual frank 
and humorous good-nature he at once took his readers 
into his confidence and explained his dilemma. Thus in 
January, 1799, he began as follows: — 

Ever desirous that the Farmer's Calendar might be useful to 
those for whom it is designed, induces the Editor to be attentive 
in making experiments, and collecting observations from men 
eminent for improvements in Agriculture. Notwithstanding 
which, there will appear a sameness in pursuing each month, 
which is unavoidable while the seasons continue the same. 

Accordingly he soon ceased to limit himself to directions 
about what to plant and when, or to cataloguing the 
" works and days." Though such matters are not neg- 
lected, we find little moral and prudential observations 
interspersed. Here is one from the Calendar for May, 
18 II. The text of the brief sermon is a proverb which 
still has a certain appropriateness : — 

Boston folks, they say, are full of notions — and so are country 
folks. By this time perhaps you think that I am a silly, notional 
creature. No matter for that. Perhaps it is but a notion, but 
I think it will be for our interest to gratify these Boston people 
in their notions, by raising peas, beans, beets, carrots, cabbage, 
squashes, turnips and potatoes &c. for their market. If you 
would know how this is to be done, go and look in your old 
almanacks. 

The "notions" of Boston folks included, in 18 17, a fine 
discrimination in cider, as appears from an item under 
September: — 

'There are a power of things,* said uncle Zachariah, 'to be 
attended to this month ; and what is of much consequence, is 



84 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

our cider; my neighbour Dupy has got a nack of making his 
cider so good and nice, that he gets about double price for all of 
it. The Boston folks have got a taste of it, and they are full of 
notions, as the saying is, you know, and they love good things 
and will give a good price for them too. Now no sooner is my 
neighbour Dupy's cider ready for market, than they grab it as 
quick as a hound will a wood-chuck, and pay him his price down 
upon the nail. Zuckers, John, let 's try what we can do ! ' 

Here is Mr. Thomas's opinion of dogs, which is not 
favorable. Incidentally we get a rather drastic picture 
of low life in the country. The exclamation points are 
Mr. Thomas's own : — 

Now I know of no use for a great lazy dog in a family, yet 
there are many poor people who keep them, and seem to be 
more fond of Jowler than of their children. It is not more than 
a year since I sent my black man on an errand into a neighbour- 
hood of people, who were generally all poor. When he returned, 
he said he had been treated with a good meal of boiled pork and 
potatoes, but he sat down with a large family of ragged hungry 
children and three large fat dogs, without either knife, fork or 
spoon upon the table. The woman pulled the pork apart with 
her fingers for her family, and Sip made use of his jacknife 
for himself!!! (May, 1813.) 

Frugality was so essential on the New England farm 
that it is not surprising that Mr. Thomas lays frequent 
emphasis on this virtue. But he was a liberal man himself, 
and he knew the difference between saving and scraping. 
He believed in a good table and thought it stupid for a 
farmer to neglect his opportunities. His catalogue of 
" garden sauce " is appetizing enough : — 

Beans, peas, young potatoes, carrots, beets, squashes, cabbage, 
turnips, onions, green corn, apples, pears, plumbs, cucumbers, 
water and musk melons ; every variety of vegetables are to be 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 85 

found in Boston market — and they are all very nice, comfortable 
and convenient to the inhabitants ; but I never yet ate any of 
them there that so well suited my palate, as those taken immedi- 
ately from my own garden. Here we have the advantage of our 
friends in town. They have them not till after they have become 
more or less wilted, dead and tasteless ; but we use them fresh 
from the ground, which makes them much more palatable and 
wholesome. My neighbour, Oldfield, however never cares for 
these, if he can get a plenty of salt beef, turnip and stewed 
pumpkin. He is for no extravagances at his table ; though it 
has been reported that he once went so far as to suffer his wife 
to make a mince pye out of liver and turnip ; but it was on an 
important occasion, when the parson and his lady made them a 
visit. Economy is to be recommended, but I hate a niggard. 
(July, 1813.) 

Another reason for cultivating the kitchen garden is 
given in the Calendar for May, 1807, — two reasons, 
indeed ; but how seriously the second of them was meant 
to be taken is problematical. At all events, Mr. Thomas 
was not a bigoted vegetarian. 

Plant garden seeds, such as beans, peas, squashes, melons, &c. 
Farmers in general too much neglect their gardens. The more 
sauce we eat, the less meat we want, and that the latter costs 
much more than the former, I need not tell you. Animal food 
has a tendency, it is said, to make man ferocious like dogs, wolves 
and tigers, whereas vegetables incline them to docility and 
kindness. 

Here is a paragraph relating to fretfulness, economy, 
and that old New England institution the " hired man," 
— three subjects which the author shows some skill in 
bringing together under one head : — 

You have now probably hired a man for a few months, to help 
along with your work — If you have a good faithful one, then 



86 THE OLD farmer's almanack 

set store by him and treat him well, and, mind me now, don't 
you fret. — Steady, boys, steady, is the song for a farmer — If 
you get yourself into a habit of continually fretting, as some do, 
then it is ten to one if you can get good men to work for you. 
But some prefer a dull, lazy lubber, because he is cheap ! but 
these cheap fellows I never want on my farm. (May, 1815.) 

As time went on, and his literary courage developed, 
Mr. Thomas found a complete remedy for the sameness 
which at first seemed inseparable from his plan. He 
gradually fell more and more into the attitude of a general 
mentor, not confining himself to purely agricultural or 
even prudential counsels, and he gave freer play to his 
natural bonhomie and homely sense of humor. Popular 
proverbs were interspersed. Little character sketches, un- 
der whimsical names indicative of the person described, 
began to make their appearance in the Farmer's Calendar 
column, and these sometimes took shape in brief apologues 
or anecdotes which are still good reading and which must 
have been peculiarly welcome to his agricultural patrons. 

So clear cut are some of the little sketches that they were 
now and again given a personal application by the readers 
of the time, who took keen delight in recognizing various 
local celebrities, of good or evil repute, in the genre pictures 
so cleverly sketched by the philosopher of Sterling. Mr. 
Thomas even found it necessary to warn his readers that 
the portraits were typical, not individual, and that he was 
not ambitious to be regarded as a personal satirist : — 

" W'hat a strange mass of nonsense this almanack-maker sends 
out every year," cried an old codger the other day. "And now 
I aflfairm, I believe our Suzy could write as nice as he does ; and, 
now you, I thought he was rather too tight upon Mr. Captain 
Bluster." I told the good old man that, in the Farmer's Calen- 
dar no particular person was ever meant to be satirized by any 
thing there written. He appeared to be satisfied and went off to 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 87 

taking in his cabbages; housing his tools, and preparing for 
winter as all of us should now be doing. (November, 1810.) 

This caveat is itself a racy little bit of portraiture, and the 
ingenious transition to the duties of the season is delight- 
ful. The passage which the "old codger" thought a little 
too severe may be found under July of the year before 
(1809;: — 

Steady is the word with good farmers. You may begin to hoe 
your corn for the last time ; but 't is said that Captain Bluster in 
the heat of his passion to finish haying before any other in town, 
has forgotten to hoe his corn but once ! The proverb says, he 
who fixeth his soul on show, loseth reality. Keep your earliest 
cucumbers for seed. 

Mr. Thomas's disclaimer was undoubtedly sincere. Yet 
his characters are too lifelike to be regarded as mere typi- 
cal abstractions or composite photographs. He was a 
shrewd observer, with a keen eye for points, and he knew 
the country. Hence his sketches form a valuable, as well 
as an extremely diverting, series of documents for the stu- 
dent of manners and morals in New England. Their 
snatches of colloquial dialogue lend them also some signifi- 
cance as examples of the Yankee dialect. No apology is 
needed, then, for the reproduction, without further pre- 
amble, of several choice specimens of Mr. Thomas's humor- 
ous portraiture. 

[OLD HUNKS.] 

Hunks possesses a large interest, yet is afraid of coming to 
want. He has also a monstrous appetite for news ; wants to read 
all the newspapers, yet will take none himself. What an excellent 
member of society such a man makes ! How favoured is that 
town which can have the supreme honour of boasting of his citi- 
zenship ! In the society of such men, publick spirit would thrive 
like a clover field, and its sweet fragrance be scented from afar. 
(December, 1808.) 



88 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

[GOING TO MEETING.] 

Good morning, Squire Thimbleberry ! So then you are carry- 
ing out your whole family to meeting this morning to hear the 
new-year's sermon ? " O yes, Mr. Weatherwise, I always intend 
that my family shall attend meeting at all times of the year, and 
on every Sunday unless they have special reason for staying at 
home. There are a few fashionable bucks in the neighborhood 
who would persuade my boys to go to the tavern rather than the 
church ; but, by my troth, sir, may I see my sons borne to their 
graves sooner than follow the practices of these swelling, swearing, 
swaggering, smoking, soaking, fopish, fuddling fools ! Zounds, 
sir, I have no patience, when I think on the folly of the times." 
(January, 1815.) 

[HASTE MAKES WASTE.] 

Do not get in your hay half made, merely to get done haying 
before your neighbour. This kind of sport will do for boys — but 
sober, rational and prudent farmers will be guilty of no such follies 
— you might as well, for the sake of dispatch, tumble your beef 
half bred and without salt into your meat tub. ' I well re- 
member,' said neighbor Simpkins, ' when I was a boy, old capt. 
Swash declared he would be done haying one year before any 
body. So he hired Tom, Dick and Harry, and at it they all 
went — half cut their grass and half made their hay, and to be 
sure got done about the time that others began. Next morning 
he put on his great coat and walked up and down the street, com- 
plaining of cold weather, &c. My father understood the intended 
joke, but only said, haste ?nakes waste ; and this maxim was veri- 
fied in the foolish conduct of capt. Swash, for before spring his 
mow smoked like a dung heap, and his cattle could not eat his 
hay, which being scarce he had to pay a high price for, to keep 
his cattle alive.' (July, 181 5.) 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 89 

[THE FARMER'S CONCERT.] 

"Music, there, music !" Aye, boy, the music of the flail and 
cider-mill, you mean. Well, John, let 's put things in order, that 
we may give them the farmer's concert. Let the cider-mill scream 
the treble — Caleb and Jo. shall slambang the tenor with their 
flails ; neighbour Flatstall's bull will keep up the fundamental bass ; 
while Ben Bluster will hollow the counter, with Kid up, old Dob- 
bin ! Whoe, gee, Spark ! Come in there, Berry ! All together now, 
I say ! (September, 18 16.) 

[OLD BETTY BLAB.] 

" Rumour is a pipe blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures ; 
and of so easy and so plain a stop, that the blunt monster with 
uncounted heads, the still discordant wavering multitude, can 
play upon it." Old Betty Blab is a dabster on this instrument ; 
she knows exactly how to time and to key her tune to give the 
proper effect ; she can perform in diatonic, cromatic, or enhar- 
monic with vast variety and astonishing modulation. Sometimes 
you will hear her whizzing and twittering aloft, like a swallow or 
curlew ; then in a moment she will drop into the croaking of a 
cormorant ; then, by a sort of iwisty-cum-quirk, she passes into 
the bob-a-lincorn, and here she excells all description. Next 
succeeds a touch of the affectuoso, and then this delightful solo 
ends in a sort of whisper, like the notes of an humble bee in a 
pumpkin blossom. It is impossible for me to do justice in de- 
scribing her powers. In all her compositions she is a master 
hand in thorough base. Your garden must be attended to ; a 
plenty of sauce greatly diminishes the butcher's bill. (April, 
1817.) 

[PUTTING ON AIRS.] 

Now, if you want time to pass away, go, buy an old horse or 
watch, give your note for 60 days and you will be gratified. 
Where is the benefit in allowing young Ebenezer to swagger 
around with a paltry old watch in his pocket and a seal as big as 



90 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

a kitten's head, puffing his segar like a wind broken horse ? O, 
it is passing strange that we should let the wholesome habits of 
good old times pass away and be forgotten. Send your boys to 
school and see that they are also learnt something at home. The 
barn-floor, — the linter — the flail & the curry-comb are not to 
be neglected. To be sure it is well enough, and indeed it is very 
proper to have recreation ; but to have nothing else doing will 
ultimately bring ruin. Either the body or mind must be engaged 
in honest industry ; for idleness is like grog — take nothing else 
and — " you 're gone, man." (February, 1819.) 

[THE LOTTERY.] 

I wish you a happy new year, Mr. Reader, but I fear you will 
not find it. I have seen forty years, no one of which has been 
free from care and anxiety. To be sure I have often imagined 
that I had lit upon the path where happiness had passed along, 
and fancied I should very soon be saluted with the brightness of 
her countenance. Here — here ! cried I to neighbor Simpkins, 
here is the way. See — every guide board points in this direction, 
' Ah, zuckins,' cries neighbor Simpkins, ' you will soon find 
yourself mistaken. Your path leads down to the gloomy pits of 
ruin. Your charming enticer is in reality a haggard hobgoblin — 
look out, neighbor, look out.' I was putting my hand in my 
pocket book to take out a bill to purchase a ticket in the lottery, 
but my neighbor's caution prevented my throwing away my money 
in this manner. ' Here,' said I to my boy, ' here, Tom, take 
this _five dollar bill to the widow Lonesome ; tell her, it is at her 
disposal ; then hasten back to your school. I will to my team 
and my wood- lot.' (January, 1813.) 

[THE IDES OF MARCH.] 

" Pray, Uncle Jacob," cried old Goody Dowdy to one of my 
neighbours, who is said to know a great deal about the weather 
and the stars, and the planets, and all the signs and wonders in 
the heavens, "what do they mean by the Ides of March?" 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 9 1 

" Tut," says Uncle Jacob, " easy enough answered — why, madam, 
the Ides were eight old women, the Nones nine, and Calind 
another, making eighteen in the whole. Their breath was poison 
as the effluvia of asps. In the month of March, particularly when 
other folks kept in, by reason of bad going, these old hags were 
sure to be abroad, blurting and puffing their venom against every 
good reputation, to which they were mortal enemies. Old mothei 
Calind took the lead, next went the Nones, and last the Ides fol- 
lowed as gleaners. To whatsoever was true, honest, just, pure, 
lovely, or of good report, their breath was as blasting and mildew. 
These monsters are now no more ; but they so leavened the world 
with their abominable practices that their influence will never be 
eradicated." (March, 1816.) 

[MARGARET AND THE MARE.] 

" My dear Margaret, heaven gave you not that sweet voite to be 
employed in scolding ; nor those delicate features to be disfigured 
with anger. Softly, my dear, softly. You see I am about to go, 
head and ears, right into the swamp to get muck for manure. 
The mare cannot go by any means, as we shall want her in the 
team. The ladies must put by their ride, otherwise I shall lose 
this opportunity of carting my compost ; and you must know, my 
dear, that mud is money to a farmer." " By jinks," retorts madam, 
" the mare shan't go ? my word for 't but she shall ! yes, here 's 
a husband for a horse ! The mare shall go in spite of men, 
money, or mud." (November, 181 6.) 

[TRADITION AND PARSNIPS.] 

" A happy new year to you, Mr. Comfortable ; will you lend me 
a mess of parsneps for dinner?" " Parsneps ! what, lend pars- 
neps? No, I will give you some; but have you raised none? " 
" Why, yes ; but I never dig mine till spring. I think they are a 
great deal better for it. This used to be my father's and grand- 
father's practice, and I approve of it as the best plan." " Poh, 
nonsense ! The best plan to keep yours in the ground, and so 



92 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

beg parsneps all winter, rather than vary from a superstitious and 
foolish notion of your grandmother ! " " Ichabod, my son," said 
goody Slipshod, " never dig your parsneps in the fall. Depend 
upon it, you '11 never prosper, Ichabod, if you vary from the good 
old rules of your grandfather. Catnip. You can borrow once in 
a while from Squire D. and so pay in the spring. That is the 
safest, my son." Fudge, fudge ! Let fools enjoy their folly, and 
we '11 enjoy our parsneps and pot luck. Dig them about the last 
of November. Keep them in a cool cellar or out house, covered 
with dry sand or sods. They will be sweet and excellent food for 
man or beast. They require a deep, rich, mellow, and rather a 
sandy soil to be sweetest. (January, 1830.) 

[TAXES ARE HIGH.] 

My old friends and worthy patrons, it is pleasant once more 
to come among you, and to salute you with the cordiality of 
long-established friendship. Toil and care, and occasional per- 
plexities, may wrinkle our brows and grizzle our locks, but our 
ernployment never tends to sour our tempers or cause any uncouth 
greetings. We drive our teams with merry hearts, and every 
thing pertaining to our occupation inculcates a spirit of gratitude 
and thanksgiving. In the sweat of the brow, to be sure, we toil 
for the pittance which Providence awards to industry ; but this 
labour and exercise also bring health of both body and mind. 
When winter, with its iron jaws, clinches upon the face of nature, 
shuts every pore, and arrests the process of vegetation, we are not 
without our innocent employments and rational enjoyments. We 
sit not in moping melancholy, growling and snarling, like angry 
mastiffs, at the prosperity of industrious neighbours ; neither do 
we churlishly retort to a goodnatured and gentle salute of " How 
fare ye, Mr. Ploughbeam?" We indeed would use the whole 
passing world, as well as ourselves, without abuse ; knowing that 
in a little while we must depart. Why then should we not try to 
be happy? ''Ah, well," says old Pinchback, "you preach curi- 
ously, but taxes are darn'd high." (January, 1832.) 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 93 



[THE CATTLE SHOW.] 

This is the month for cattle shows, and other agricultural ex- 
hibitions — Premiums are offered by various societies for the 
greatest crops ; the best stock, and the best domestic manufac- 
tures, and thousands are pulling away for the prize, with all their 
might. 

The great Bull of Farmer Lumpkins is a nosuch ! 

Peter Nibble has raised a monstrous field of white beans ! 

Jo Lucky's acre of corn has seven stout ears to the stalk ! 

Dolly Dilligence has outstript all in the bonnet line ! 

Tabitha Twistem's hearth rug is up to all Market-street ! 

The Linsey-Woolsey Manufacturing Company have made the 
finest piece of satinet that ever mortals set eyes on ! 

There is the widow Clacket's heifer, she is to be driven ! 

And, O, if you could only see 'Squire TruUiber's great boar ! 
They say it is as big as a full grown rhinoceros ! 

Huzza, huzza for the premiums ! Here 's to the girl that can 
best darn a stocking, and to the lad that shall raise the biggest 
pumpkin ! (October, 1824.) 

[THE BAKER.] 

Hark ! 't is the jingle of the baker's bells. Hot bread, who 
buys? Have a care now, Mr. Sweetmouth, how you let this bill 
run up. Wheat loaves, gingerbread, hot buns and seed-cakes — 
these are all very clever. But there is my aunt Sarah's brown 
bread, sweet, pleasant and wholesome ; don't give it up for a 
cartload of muffins and jumbles. There is no discount on my 
aunt Sarah's cooking ; she is the personification of neatness and 
nicety. Give me a plate of her nutcakes in preference to all the 
sweetmeats of the city. It has become somewhat fashionable to 
cast off old Rye-and- Indian for Genesee, Howard-street, &c. — also 
to give up heating the oven. I imagine that this change is vastly 
convenient for the shoe-peggers. " Tell the baker he may leave 
us half a dozen of his three cent biscuit," said Mrs. Crispin. Now 



94 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

three times six are eighteen, and eighteen times 365 are $65.70 — 
whew ! This will never do. In our haste to get rich, we must 
look at both ends of the railcut. Bread is denominated the staff 
of life, the main supporting food ; but this so important article 
may, as well as a whistle, come too dear. Let your good wife, 
then, have her own hands in the kneading trough, nor heed too 
much the morning music of the baker's boy. (May, 1837.) 

In 18 13 the whole of the Farmer's Calendar for three 
months (October to December) is occupied by a continu- 
ous narrative sketch : — 

My neighbor Freeport had a knack at telling a story, cracking 
a joke and singing a song, and these talents made him a favourite 
of his townsmen. Every town meeting and training was sure 
to gather round him a crowd of jovial fellows, and my neighbour 
pretty soon added to his other acquisitions that of handsomely 
swigging a glass of grog. The demands for stories, jokes and 
songs encreased with the reward he received for them ; and 
Freeport had not a heart to refuse either, till the tavern became 
his common resort. But while Freeport was so musical at the 
tavern his affairs got out of tune at home. His wife took a high 
pitch, and often gave him an unwelcome solo. Her stories had 
much of pith, and her sarcasms were of the keenest sort. She 
insisted that their affairs were going to rack and ruin. Some- 
times the neighbour's cattle had broken into the corn — the 
rye had been ruined by laying out in the storm — the hogs had 
broken in and rooted up the garden — the hay was half lost for 
want of attention — the fences were broken down, &c. &c. And 
then the children — (October.) 

Alas ! the poor children were shoeless, coatless and heartless ; 
for they had become the scoff and sport of their little companions 
by reason of their father's neglect to provide them with decent 
and comfortable apparel. They were unable to read, for they 
had no books. The sheep — here the poor woman sorely wept 
— were sold by the collector to pay taxes. So there was no 
chance for any wool to knit the children's stockings. No flax 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 95 

had been raised, and of course they could have no shirts. To 
hear all this and ten times more was not very welcome to the ears 
of Freeport, vhose heart was naturally tender and humane, so to 
get rid of it, he used to return to the tavern like a sow to her 
wallowing. His shop bills run up fast, while his character was 
running down. In this way he went on about two years, till old 
Scrapewell and Screwpenny got his farm; for all this time these 
usurers had been lending him money, and thus encouraging him 
to pursue this dreadful course. (November.) 

Old Capt. Gripe also came in for a share of poor Freeport's 
estate ; and there was Plunket, the cobler, he had lent him nine 
pence several times and now had cobbled it up to a court de- 
mand. Bob Raikins had swapped watches with him, and came 
in for the boot. The widow Nippet had lent him her mare twice 
to mill and once to a funeral, and had sold the boys an old tow 
jacket for a peck of whortleberries, and also given them a mess of 
turnips, and so she made out her account and got a writ. Tom 
Teazer, well known at the grog shops for a dabster at shoemaker 
loo, old Jeremiah Jenkins, the Jew, Stephen Staball, the butcher, 
and all the village moon-cursers came in for their portion of the 
wreck. So poor Freeport gave up vessel and cargo to these land 
pirates, sent his disconsolate wife again to her father with one of 
their babes, the rest were provided for by the town ; and as for 
himself, miserable wretch, he became an outcast, a vagabond, 
and died drunk in the highway ! (December.) 

There is undeniable merit in this unpretentious narrative. 
It is somewhat crude, to be sure, but any attempt at polish 
would have defeated the author's purpose. The tragedy 
is humble, and even sordid, but it is complete and unspar- 
ing ; it moves forward pitilessly to the bitter end with the 
steadiness of fate. Some of the details are hardly suscep- 
tible of improvement. The matter-of-fact brutality of poor 
Freeport's petty creditors is a fine piece of vigorous realism. 
What could be better in its way than the single brief 
sentence which pillories the village sharper: "Bob 



g6 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Raikins had swapped watches with him, and came in for 
the boot " ! It is a masterpiece of suggestive reticence. 

The secret of Mr. Thomas's success in this little story is 
easy to discover: he was not trying to be " literary "; he 
was writing of what he had seen and known. The contrast 
is striking between the Tragedy of Neighbor Freeport, 
hidden away in the Farmer's Calendar, and the attempts at 
formal story-writing familiar to the student of American 
letters in the columns of the literary journals of the time. 

One or two points in the sketch may require a word 
of comment. " Shoemaker loo " was a round game at 
cards. How it differed from ordinary loo does not appear. 
" Moon-curser " is not in the dictionaries, but it ought to 
be, for it is a highly picturesque and imaginative word. 
A moon-curser is a wrecker. Of that there is no doubt, 
for the term is still in use on Cape Cod, and probably 
elsewhere. Its origin is conjectural, but admits of little 
doubt. The old-time wrecker was not an angel of mercy. 
To him, as to the witches in Macbeth, fair was foul and foul 
was fair. Darkness and storm were his opportunities, and 
he cursed the moon, whose light deprived him of his chance 
for plunder. Another application of the term may be 
seen in Richard Head's Canting Academy, 1673 : — 

The Moon Curser is generally taken for any Lmk-Boy ; but 
particularly he is one that waits at some Corner of Lincolns-Inn- 
Fields with a Link in his hand, who under the pretence of Light- 
ing you over the Fields, being late and few stiring, shall light you 
into a Pack of Rogues that wait for the comming of this Setter, 
and so they will all joyne in the Robbery. 

Some of these were found to be Labourers so called, such who 
wrought all day in the Ruins of the City and were paid by their 
Master Workmen, and at night found an easier way to pay them- 
selves by lying in the Ruins, and as they saw occasion would 
drag in people into Vaults and Cellars and there rob them.^ 

1 P. lOI. 



WIT AND WISDOM OF THE FARMER'S CALENDAR 9/ 

One is tempted to go on indefinitely with the Old 
Farmer's sketches of life and manners, and the stock is 
by no means exhausted, but enough has been quoted to 
show not only their literary interest but their significance 
for the student of social conditions in New England. 



LAWYERS AND QUACKS 

" r~Tr~^HE best houses in Connecticut are inhabited by 
I lawyers," wrote Henry Wansey in 1794.^ Here 
was a great change from the state of things 
when Thomas Lechford found it so hard to practise his 
profession in Boston that he was constrained to warn the 
colonists not to " despise learning, nor the worthy lawyers 
of either gown (civil or ecclesiastical), lest you repent 
too late." ^ But there were corners of New England in 
which the old order long maintained itself, and one of 
these was West Boylston, the home of Mr. Thomas. 
When, in 1826, the local minister, the Rev. Mr. Crosby, 
wrote his brief history of the town for the Worcester 
Magazine, he remarked that there were three justices of 
the peace, one of them being Mr. Thomas himself, but 
that they had little to do and that there was no resident 
man of law.^ 

It was natural, then, as well as sensible, for the Almanac 
to bid its readers beware of litigation. " I would not run 
to 'Squire Fraylove," says Mr. Thomas in the Farmer's 
Calendar for April, 1815, "at every petty dispute with a 
troublesome neighbour. You will be sure to be advised 
to a suit, and then comes business enough." And still 
earlier, in December, 18 10, after a hearty commendation 

1 Journal of an Excursion to the United States of North America in the 
Summer of 1794, Salisbury, 1796, p. 70. 

2 Plaine Dealing, 1642, p. 28; ed. Trumbull, p. 68. 

3 Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal, August, 1826, II, 201, 
West Boylston was set off from Sterling and Boylston in 1808 (cf. pp. 4-5, 
above). 



LAWYERS AND QUACKS 99 

of married life, the farmer's counsellor has a sly fling at 
the legal profession: — 

Now having been industrious in the summer, you will have the 
felicity of retiring from the turbulence of the storm to the bosom 
of your family. Here is divine employment. Surely if happiness 
can any where be found on earth, 't is in the sweet enjoyment of 
the fireside, surrounded by a domestic throng — a lovely wife and 
prattling babes. Ye cold and barren fens of celibacy, behold 
the delightful regions of matrimony ! Leave your frigid abodes, 
and come and dwell in society, and taste the rational pleasures of 
a connubial state. Lawyers gowns are lined with the wilfulness 
of their clients. Then let us be accommodating and not run to 
the lawyer at every little offence. An honest and upright attorney 
is an advantage to a town ; but one that is ready to set his neigh- 
bors at variance to govern a few thereby is a pest to society. 
'T is not likely that we have many of the last description in New 
England as we have so very small a mimber in the whole. 

The distinction between honest attorneys and petti- 
foggers is clearly made, but the closing sentence ingeni- 
ously takes back a large portion of the compliment that 
precedes it. Yet it is clear that Mr. Thomas made a sharp 
distinction between reputable men of law and pretenders. 
Of the latter there seem to have been a good many in 
the country districts. John Adams, in 1760, speaks of 
" the multiplicity of pettifoggers " in Braintree, vi^hich had 
become proverbial for litigation, and specifies one " Cap- 
tain H.," who, he says, " has given out that he is a sworn 
attorney till nine tenths of this town really believe it." ^ 

In December, 18 18, Mr. Thomas varies his usual advice 
to settle up the year's accounts by introducing some 
reflections on going to law: — 

Now prepare your papers and make it a business to go round 
and settle with all your neighbours with whom you have accounts 

1 Works, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston, 1850, II, 90-91. 



100 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

open. Avoid wrangling and law fighting. It is never worth 
your while to go to law at the expense of $500 about nine pence ; 
but should you ever be forced into a law suit, take the advice of 
respectable counsel and then keep your tongue within your teeth. 
If you foolishly blab your case to your neighbours they will all, 
men, women and children, become prodigiously wise and know- 
ing. They will talk law at a great rate, and distress you with 
their wisdom. 

Five kinds of pestilence are associated in a single prayer 
for immunity in August, 1813 : — 

From quack lawyers, quack doctors, quack preachers, mad 
dogs and yellow fever, good Lord, deliver us ! This is my 
sincere prayer, let others do and say as they will. A respectable 
attorney is an advantage to a town and ought to have the esteem 
of his fellow citizens ; but a meddlesome pettifogger deserves the 
treatment of any other sneaking puppy that runs his nose into 
your closet. As for strolling preachers, 'O ye generation of 
vipers ' ! I would hear any evil far better than the gabble of one 
of these intruding boobies. Yet how many forsake all business 
and pleasure that they may enjoy the ecstatic bliss of listening 
to their empty disgusting and blasphemous nonsense ! It is a 
serious misfortune to have a woman, a head of a family, yet be- 
witched by one of these fellows. Whenever this happens, farewell 
to all business, to all comfort ! No more dairy, no more spinning 
or weaving or knitting or sewing. Forenoon, afternoon and 
evening nothing but attending lectures to hear the charming, the 
pious, the godly Mr. Bitemslily — totally regardless of that text 
of the sacred volume which says ' six days shalt thou labour and 
do all thy work.' 

For physicians and ministers, as well as for upright 
attorneys, Mr. Thomas had plenty of respect, but he could 
not abide a charlatan. Quack doctors come in elsewhere 
for some rather slashing satire. Thus in September, 1806, 
we read : — " There are a great many asses without long ears. 



LAWYERS AND QUACKS lOI 

Quack, Quack, went the ducks, as doctor Motherwort rode 
by with his saddle-bags stuffed with maiden-hair, and 
golden-rod. Don't let your wife send Tommy to the 
academy six weeks, and make a novice of him." 

And in September, 1813, there is a drastic description 
of " the famous Dr. Dolt " : "A larnt man is the doctor. 
Once he was a simple knight of the lapstone and pegging 
awl ; but now he is blazoned in the first orders of quack 
heraldry. The mighty cures of the doctor are known far 
round. He is always sure to kill the disorder, although in 
effecting this he sometimes kills the patient." 

An agreeable and ingenuous letter addressed to Mr. 
Thomas in 1801, by an esteemed correspondent in Franklin, 
Massachusetts, called out a comparison not very flattering 
to the legal profession. The writer is worried by the ap- 
parent neglect to answer certain questions proposed in the 
Almanac five years before. He expostulates with the editor 
in a strain of dignified forbearance, and improves the occa- 
sion to commend the work highly. His letter was printed 
in the Almanac for 1802, with a full reply to each of the 
problems. The reader will remember that both millers 
and tailors had, in old times,, a reputation for pilfering. 

Mr. Thomas, 

In looking over the Farmer's Almanack for the year 1796. I 
there found four Miscellaneous Questions, viz. ist. Whether the 
Sun goes round the earth and the earth stands still? &c. 2dly. 
Which is counted the most honest employment of the three fol- 
owing, viz. a Tailor, a Lawyer, or a Miller? 3dly. Whether 
the Shrub commonly called Fern, bears or produces any seed? 
&c. 4thly. How long it is since smoking tobacco, and taking 
of snuff, has been in use in England; the time when? &c. 

Now, Sir, I have been a constant patron of your Almanack, 
and have waited in anxious expectations these four years last 
past, of seeing answers to the above questions, but have ever 
been disappointed; I would not be misunderstood. Sir, that you 



102 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

intended to deceive your patrons, or to cast any reflections on 
your ability to answer them, for the precepts and observations 
you have given in your preceding numbers thoroughly demonstrate 
your knowledge of natural philosophy ; but rather to some acci- 
dent they have slipped your memory. 

I must say I have been highly pleased with your Almanack, 
and posterity anticipate your further usefulness as a man of read- 
ing and observation. I doubt not but that your Almanack will 
very soon exceed in circulation any other published in the United 
States, and I may venture to say, without flattery, it now is equal 
to any in estimation. Therefore, Sir, I humbly hope, that in 
your next number (viz. X.) I shall see your answers to the above 
questions. 

I am, Sir, with sincere Esteem, 

Your must humble Servant, 
Franklin, March lo, 1801. S. H. 

ANSWERS. 

To the Miscellaneous Questions in the Farmer's 
Almanack for the Year 1796. 

Answer to Question ist. — I AGREE with the best modern 
astronomers, that the Sun is an immoveable centre, round which 
the planets (of which the earth is one) move by different revolu- 
tions. But the figure, which the earth annually describes, is not 
circular, but elliptical or oval ; which is the reason why it does 
not continue equidistant from the Sun. But as once a year it 
travels round the Sun, so in the compass of 24 hours it moves 
round its own axis ; whence arises the alternate succession of 
day and night. 

2d. — Fie! join a lawyer with such company; they hold no 
comparison with each other ! I know what you '11 say, that the 
miller's clacks, and the lawyer's clacks are in perpetual motion, 
with the like sound and sense ; and that as the first grinds down 
your corn, the other grinds down the land it grows upon. But 
then the lawyer is in a fair way to break the miller. You may 
urge too, that the tailor and lawyer equally ruin you with their 



LAWYERS AND QUACKS I03 

long bills ; but then, consider, the tailor's bill is full of fustian- 
nonsense, scrolls, blots, and repetitions of the same things, differ- 
ently placed, and, by consequence, not worthy your understanding ; 
whilst your lawyer, in his cramp law terms, is as much above your 
understanding, and therefore preferable : and tho' you know not 
what you give your money for to either, yet, certainly, any would 
give more for a parcel of fine significant words, than for so many 
false spelt blunders. 'T is true, they both furnish you with suits ; 
but which is the best workman, the tailor, who must have matter 
to work upon, or the lawyer, who can make a long suit out of 
nothing? Your tailor's suit is gone in half a year, but the lawyer's 
will last often to your posterity ; suppose he hurries you out of 
breath upon a wrong scent, yet then he will give you time by a 
writ of error or demurrer, to recover yourself, and keep in fast 
friendship to you whilst you have the strength of one fee left. 
And though he runs some out of their estates, he often gives to 
others other people's estates, which is yet some compensation. 
Say, he then manages the cause accordingly, which is something 
analogical to equity ; nay, put the worst, that you are quite ruined ; 
he tells you it comes from your own mis-informing of him, which, 
whether you apprehend or not, you ought to believe, as supposing 
he best understands what belongs to his own business. Now 
your miller and tailor are by no means capacitated for such fine 
qualifications as these. 

The replies to the third and fourth questions need not 
be reprinted, since they are less interesting nowadays than 
they were in 1802. 

We may close this brief chapter with a quotation from 
the diary of Dr. Nathaniel Ames the younger, himself a 
composer of almanacs, which belongs to this same year : — 

A Lawyer in every man's mess here, nothing will go with Fools 
without a Lawyer, but from good company they are excluded ! 
or if they get in, they spoil it.^ 

1 April 3, 1802, Dedham Historical Register, XI, 103. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER 



H 



ERE is an item of natural history from Rhode 
Island. It is extracted from the Almanac for 
1798:- 



A TOAD was seen fighting with a spider in Rhode-Island ; 
and when the former was bit, it hopped to a plantain leaf, bit off 
a piece, and then engaged with the spider again. After this had 
been repeated sundry times, a spectator pulled up the plantain, 
and put it out of the way. The toad, on being bit again, jumped 
to where the plantain had stood ; and as it was not to be found, 
she hopped round several times, turned over on her back, swelled 
up, and died immediately. This is an evident demonstration 
that the juice of the plantain is an antidote against the bites of 
those venomous insects.^ 

Nothing could be simpler or more straightforward than 
this anecdote. It bears every appearance of being a mere 
bit of local observation. Yet there is a good deal to be 
learned about the story, for it turns out, on examination, 
to be a variant of a widespread piece of legendary lore. 
Van Helmont, the great Flemish chemist and medical 
reformer, who died in 1644, may be summoned as the 
first witness. In his treatise on the Plague he tells almost 
exactly the same tale, on the authority of a noble lady of 
his acquaintance : — 

1 Plantain, by the way, is said by Josselyn, in his New England's Rarities 
Discovered, 1672, to be one of the herbs that " have sprung up since the 
English planted and kept cattle in New England." The Indians, he tells us, 
call it " Enghshman's foot, as though produced by their treading" (ed. 
Tuckerman, p. 217). 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER IO5 

And indeed the Lady of Rommerswal Toparchesse in Ecchove, 
a noble, afifined, and honest Matron, related to me in candour of 
spirit, that she once beheld a duel between a Spider, and a Toad, 
for a whole afternoon : For this, when he felt himself to be stricken 
by the Spider descending from above, and that he was presently 
swollen in his head, he runs to an herb which he licked, and 
being most speedily cured, his swelling asswaged ; from whence he 
setting upon a repeated fight, was again also smitten in his head, 
and hastened unto the same herb ; And when as the thing had now 
the third time happened, the Spectatresse being tired, cut off the 
Plant with her knife (but it was the Plantain with a narrow leaf) 
and when as the Toad returned thither the fourth time, and found 
not the herb, he most speedily swelled all over, and being sore 
smitten with terrour, presently died : But he betook not himself 
unto the neighboring plants of the same Plantain, and those 
frequently growing (for the image of the conception of fear, and 
sorrow, produceth a speedy death, the hope of a most speedy 
remedy perisheth in a most furious disease) for when he found 
not his own Plantain, he who before encountred from a hope of 
presently recovering, forthwith despairing through fear and an 
idea of terrour, died.^ 

Van Helmont explains the remissness of the toad in 
accordance with his peculiar system of medical philosophy, 
but his narrative coincides in almost every particular with 
the report from Rhode Island. 

From Flanders we may pass to England. There the duel 
between the Toad and the Spider received poetical treat- 
ment at the hands of Richard Lovelace, whose studies 
were not of a kind to acquaint him with Van Helmont's 
dissertation. The piece in question was first published in 
1659, but was written some time before.^ It begins with 
all the pomp and circumstance of an epic. 

1 Tumulus Pestis, or the Plague-Grave, chap. 17, in Physick Refined, trans- 
lated by John Chandler, London, 1662, p. 1151. 

2 Posthume Poems, 1659; see Lovelace's Poems, ed. Hazlitt, pp. 199 ff. 



I06 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Upon a day when the Dog-star 
Unto the world proclaim'd a war, 
And poyson bark'd from his black throat, 
And from his jaws infection shot, 
Under a deadly hen-bane shade 
With slime infernal mists are made, 
Met the two dreaded enemies. 
Having their weapons in their eyes. 

After some skirmishing the Toad is bitten by the Spider: 

And wounded now, apace crawls on 

To his next plantane surgeon ; 

With whose rich balm no sooner drest, 

But purged is his sick swoln breast ; 

And as a glorious combatant, 

That only rests awhile to pant, 

Then with repeated strength, and scars, 

That smarting, fire him to new wars. 

Deals blows that thick themselves prevent. 

As they would gain the time he spent : 

So the disdaining angry toad, 

That calls but a thin useless load 

His fatal feared self, comes back, 

With unknown venome fiU'd to crack. 

Thus the combat is renewed. Bitten again, the Toad 
returns to seek his antidote. But his opponent has a 
divine ally, — no less a personage than the goddess Pallas, 
whose interest in the struggle will not seem unnatural if 
we remember the myth of Arachne, charmingly told by 
Ovid in the sixth book of his Metamorphoses. The 
Lydian maiden Arachne, proud of her skill in weaving, 
had presumed to challenge Pallas herself to a match and 
had produced a web which even the goddess could not 
surpass. Pallas tore the fabric to pieces and smote her 
audacious rival on the forehead. Arachne hanged herself, 
but the goddess pitied her and forbade her dying. She 
transformed Arachne into a spider, and in that shape the 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER lO/ 

Lydian damsel still practises her art. No wonder, then, 
that Pallas intervened in this duel as she did on a memo- 
rable occasion in the Trojan War. She summoned the 
Spider's protecting genius, and sent him to the plantain : — 

He learned was in Nature's laws, 
Of all her foliage knew the cause, 
And 'mongst the rest in his choice want 
Unplanted had this plantane plant. 

So the Toad died, " with a dismal horrid yell." 

From literature we may turn to science, and call in the 
evidence of an expert who had not only considered the 
question seriously, but had put its truth to a test that 
seems practically decisive. This investigator is Sir Thomas 
Browne, the learned physician of Norwich (1605-1682). In 
his Vulgar Errors, Sir Thomas devotes a whole chapter^ 
to the Toad, discussing not only its venomous quality, but 
also the precious jewel which, according to Shakspere, it 
bears in its head. In another passage of the same work^ 
he treats of the common belief in " the antipathy between 
a toad and a spider " and of the assertion " that they poison- 
ously destroy each other." He could be well content to 
know the facts about these duels, since such knowledge 
might provide us with valuable antidotes. " But," he adds 
regretfully, " what we have observed herein, we cannot in 
reason conceal ; who having in a glass included a toad 
with several spiders, we beheld the spiders, without resist- 
ance to sit upon his head and pass over all his body; 
which at last upon advantage he swallowed down, and that 
in few hours, unto the matter of seven." 

As we bid farewell to the famous Duel of the Toad and 
the Spider, we may pause to note another New England 
combat, less widely notorious, but perhaps more strictly 
historical. It is recorded as occurring in Massachusetts 

1 Book iii, chap. 13. 2 Book iii, chap. 27, § 6. 



I08 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

in 1632, only two years after the settlement of Boston. 
As we read the account of it which Governor Winthrop 
gives in his Journal, we shall doubtless wonder what deep 
significance the divines of the early colonial period would 
have discovered in the Rhode Island marvel if it had 
happened in their time: — 

At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a 
great combat between a mouse and a snake ; and, after a long 
fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of 
Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave 
this interpretation : That the snake was the devil ; the mouse was 
a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which 
should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his kingdom.^ 

To appreciate the Rev. Mr. Wilson's interpretation one 
must remember that nobody doubted in the seventeenth 
century that the Indians worshipped the Devil. Cotton 
Mather, who in such matters was but the child of his 
time, held that the American continent was populated by 
the special exertions of the foul fiend. Satan, he con- 
tended, "seduced the first inhabitants into it" in order to 
keep them and their posterity " out of the sound of the 
silver trumpets of the Gospel." ^ And he quotes a con- 
verted sachem as declaring that he had " often employ'd 
his god, which appear'd to him in form of a snake, to kill, 
wound, and lame such whom he intended mischief to." ^ 
As late as 1773, so enlightened a thinker as President 
Stiles of Yale College had no doubt that " the Powaws of 
the American Indians are a Relict of [the] antient System 
of seeking to an evil invisible Power." " Something of it," 
he adds, " subsists among some Almanack Makers [Note 
that this was before the time of Mr. Thomas I] and Fortune 

1 Winthrop's History, ed. Savage, 1853, I, 97. 

2 Magnalia, book i, chap, i, § 2, ed. 1853, I, 42. 

3 Magnalia, book vi, chap, vi, § 3, ed. 1853. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER IO9 

Tellers . . . But in general the System is broken up, the 
Vessel of Sorcery shipwreckt, and only some shattered 
planks and pieces disjoyned floating and scattered on the 
Ocean of the human Activity and Bustle. When the Sys- 
tem was intire, it was a direct seeking to Satan." ^ 

There was nothing peculiar in the mental attitude of the 
New England divines toward the beliefs of the American 
Indians. It had always been the theory of the church that 
the heathen everywhere were devil-worshippers, and that 
sorcery and pagan sacrifices were but different varieties of 
Satanic ritual. Every reader will remember that the fallen 
angels are described by Milton as masquerading in the 
guise of the pagan divinities of old time, and in this idea the 
poet is in complete accord with the Greek and Latin fathers. 
It would be superfluous to multiply seventeenth-century 
evidence, but it may not be amiss to call in the testimony 
of the Jesuit missionaries in Canada. Father Lejeune, in 
1635, after giving an account of a Huron medicine-woman, 
remarks : " Thus the devil beguiles this unfortunate people, 
substituting his impieties and superstitions for the con- 
formity that they ought to have with the providence of 
God and the worship that they ought to render him." ^ 
And again, the medicine-men " are, in my opinion, genuine 
wizards, having access to the devil." ^ Father Jouvency 
identified the Manitou of the Acadian aborigines " beyond 
a doubt with the enemy of the human race." * And Father 
Biard, writing from Port Royal, declares that " though they 
have a kind of slender knowledge of the one most high God, 
yet they are so depraved in sentiments and practice that 
they also worship the devil." ^ 

To Cotton Mather a Jesuit was scarcely less an object of 

1 Diary, June 13, 1773, ed. Dexter, I, 385-6. 
■^ Jesuit Relations, ed. Thwaites, VHI, 126- 

3 The same, VHI, 124. 

4 The same, I, 286. 
^ The same, H. 76. 



no THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

horror than an Indian powwow, and Father Lejeune would 
doubtless have reciprocated this feehng fully. Yet on the 
point of belief in the Satanic character of the Indian worship 
neither the Boston minister nor the French priest could 
have found anything objectionable in the teachings of the 
other. 

It was this idea that the Indians were sorcerers and devil- 
worshippers that had no small part in the outbreak of super- 
stition known as the Salem Witchcraft Delusion, though 
the causes of this particular tragedy were complex enough. 
The Indian woman Tituba was one of the three persons 
first accused of the crime, and her admissions were of 
great importance to the prosecutors. By 1793, however, 
when Mr. Thomas published his first Almanac, a far more 
rational temper prevailed among the clergy. In 1789 Dr. 
Jeremy Belknap, of honored memory, who had been read- 
ing Mather's Magnalia, wrote to his friend Hazard in terms 
of humorous good sense : — 

Were I to preach on the subject of 7vitchcraft, I would have 
this for my text : " O foolish Galatians ! who hath bewitched you ? " 
I would first endeavour to show that people may be hnvitchcd ; 
secondly, that they are great fools for being bewitched ; and, 
thirdly, that it concerns them to enquire who has bewitched them ; 
and my inference should be, if there were no fools, there would be 
no witchcraft ; or rather I would transpose the second and third 
heads. The same inference would come out better.^ 

It should not be forgotten that, even in the eighteenth 
century, few persons were absolutely convinced that witch- 
craft was an impossible crime. Enlightened opinion hardly 
went farther, in general, than to ridicule the absurdity of 
most witchcraft stories, to emphasize the ignorance of 
those who held to the old popular creed in this regard, 

1 Belknap Papers, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 5th Series, HI, 205. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER III 

and to refuse belief to this or that specific case of diaboli- 
cal possession. An out-and-out denial of the theoretical 
possibility of witchcraft was quite a different matter. Most 
people were inclined to think that there had been witches 
" in old times," — at all events, " in Bible times " ; and no- 
body felt quite sure when compacts with the devil had 
become obsolete. Rationalism itself often turned pale at 
specific phenomena, as indeed it sometimes does to-day. 

Reckless denouncers of New England for the witchcraft 
delusion of the seventeenth century forget many things — or 
never knew them. The wonder is, not that such an out- 
break should have taken place, but that it should have 
come to an end so soon. The attack was as short as it 
was sharp ; and its sharpness was by no means extraordi- 
nary when compared with the violence with which the 
disorder raged in other parts of the world. Few persons 
have the time or the inclination to explore the gloomy 
literature of demonology ; but it is not too much to ask of 
the historical student, or even of the general reader, that 
before he passes judgment on his ancestors in so weighty a 
matter, he should make an attempt to put himself in con- 
tact with the history of European thought and with the 
general state of opinion in the seventeenth and the early 
eighteenth century. One can at least read the witch stories 
in the supplement to the Antidote against Atheism of Dr. 
Henry More, the famous Cambridge Platonist, and in the 
Triumph over the Sadducces ^ of Dr. Joseph Glanvil, who 
was chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II, a Fellow of 
the Royal Society, and the author of a celebrated treatise 
on the Vanity of Dogmatizing. Glanvil's witch-book ap- 
peared in a fourth edition as late as 1726, and was thought 
to have demolished the arguments of the doubters. 

A little reading of this kind is a good corrective spice, 

1 Saddticismus Triumphatus is the title, but the book is in English. It 
was first published in 1681. 



112 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

as Lord Bacon would have called it. Our whole difficulty 
in estimating the significance of the troubles at Salem 
comes from lack of perspective. They make a great noise 
in the annals of New England, and we find it hard not to 
think of them as something monstrous or abnormal. But 
they were neither. Deplorable as the witchcraft persecu- 
tion was, it should not be treated hysterically or as if it 
were an isolated phenomenon. Here were the New Eng- 
landers settled on the edge of the wilderness and in daily 
contact with a savage race whom all the world believed to 
be worshippers of Satan. They had brought from Eng- 
land the same beliefs in the intervention of the devil in 
human affairs that everybody held, and they had seen no 
occasion to modify them. Nor had their countrymen who 
remained at home in England suffered any change of 
heart. Is it reasonable to demand from the New Eng- 
landers, lay or clerical, exposed as they were to peculiar 
terrors in a wild country, a degree of calm rationality 
which was not found among their contemporaries in Eng- 
land "who sat at home at ease "? 

There is nothing strange, then, in the outbreak of witch- 
craft persecution in Massachusetts. It was inconceivable 
that the Colony should pass through its first century with- 
out such a calamity. The wonderful thing is that it did not 
come sooner and last longer. From the first pranks of Mr, 
Parris's unhappy children (in February, 1692) to the col- 
lapse of the prosecution in January, 1693, ^^s less than a 
year. During the interval twenty persons had suffered 
death, and two are known to have died in jail.^ If to 
these we add a few sporadic cases, there is a total of be- 
tween twenty-five and thirty victims ; but this is the whole 
reckoning, not merely for a year or two but for a com- 
plete century. The concentration of the troubles in Massa- 

1 C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, Boston, 1S67, II, 351. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER II3 

chusetts within the limits of a single year has given a wrong 
turn to the thoughts of many writers. This concentration 
makes the case more conspicuous, but it does not make it 
worse. On the contrary, it makes it better. It is astonish- 
ing that there should have been less than half a dozen exe- 
cutions for witchcraft in Massachusetts before 1692, and 
equally astonishing that the delusion, when it became acute, 
should have raged for but a year, and that but twenty per- 
sons should have been executed. The facts are distinctly 
creditable to our ancestors, — to their moderation and to 
the rapidity with which their good sense could reassert 
itself after a brief eclipse. 

No one has ever made an accurate count of the execu- 
tions for witchcraft in England in the seventeenth century, 
but they must have mounted into the hundreds.^ Matthew 
Hopkins, the infamous " witch-finder general," is thought 
to have brought sixty persons to the gallows in Suffolk in 
1645 ^^^ 1646; by his efforts fifteen were hanged in Essex 
in 1645 ^^^ sixteen at Yarmouth the year before. His 
confederate Stern puts the sum total of Hopkins's victims 
at two hundred.^ In Scotland, where there was no Hop- 
kins, the number was much greater than in England. On 
the continent of Europe many thousands suffered death in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nicholas Remy 
(Remigius) of Lorraine gathered the materials for his work 
on the " Worship of Demons," published in 1595,'^ from 
the trials of some nine hundred persons whom he had sen- 
tenced to death in the fifteen years preceding. The efforts 
of the Bishop of Bamberg from 1622 to 1633 resulted in 
six hundred executions, the Bishop of Wiirzburg, in about 
the same period, is said to have put nine hundred persons 

1 See Hutchinson, Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, 2d ed., Lon- 
don, 1720, pp. 45 ff. 

2 Lives of Twelve Bad Men, edited by Thomas Seccombe, London, 1894, 
p. 64. 

8 Daemonolatreia, Lugduni, 1595. 



114 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

to death.i These figures, which might be multiphed almost 
indefinitely,^ help us to regard the Salem Witchcraft in its 
true proportions, — as a very small incident in the history 
of a terrible superstition. 

The last execution for witchcraft in Massachusetts took 
place in 1693, as we have seen; indeed, twenty of the total 
of about twenty-five cases fall within that and the preceding 
year. There were no witch trials in New England in the 
eighteenth century. The annals of Europe are not so clear. 
In England Jane Wenham was condemned to death for this 
imaginary crime in 1 712, but she was pardoned.^ The act 
against witchcraft was repealed in 1736, but in 175 1 Ruth 
Osborne, a reputed witch, was killed by a mob in Hertford- 
shire.* The last execution for witchcraft in Germany took 
place in 1775. In Spain the last witch was burned to death 
in 1 78 1. In Switzerland Anna Goldi was beheaded in 1782 
for bewitching the child of her master, a physician. In 
Poland two women were burned as late as 1793.^ Just 
before the arrest of Jane Wenham, Addison, in the Spec- 
tator for July II, 171 1, had expressed the creed of a 
well-bred and sensible man of the world : " I believe in 
general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witch- 
craft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any 
particular Instance of it." And with this significant utter- 
ance we may close our brief discussion of a subject that 
has been much misunderstood and return to our toads. 

The toad is a distinguished figure both in literature and 
in popular superstition or folk-lore, and he owes his fame 

1 Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, Stuttgart, 18S0, II, 

38 ff. 

2 See the extraordinary enumeration in Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, 
Leipzig, 1869, II, 293 ff. 

8 Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, London, 1851, II, 
319 ff. 

* The same, II, 326 ff. 

6 Soldan, II, 314, 322, 327. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER II5 

to his supposed venomous qualities quite as much as to 
his ughness. The Roman ladies, if we may believe Juvenal, 
poisoned thjir husbands with a preparation of the rubeta, 
a small toad,^ — a more delicate instrument of murder, he 
suggests, than Clytemnestra's axe. " To give one frogs 
instead of fish " is an old proverbial variation of the Bibli- 
cal "If he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent?" 
An ingredient of the witches' caldron in Macbeth was a 

Toad, that under cold stone 
Days and nights has thirty-one 
Swelter'd venom sleajDing got, 

and one of the commentators who will not allow Shakspere 
to make a mistake refers to a learned disquisition in the 
"Transactions of the Royal Society for 1826," in which a 
certain Dr. Davy proves " that the toad is venomous, and 
moreover that ' swelter'd venom ' is peculiarly proper, the 
poison being diffused over the body immediately under 
the skin." According to Milton, when Satan wished to 
suggest wickedness to the sleeping Eve he "squat like a 
toad" at her ear and whispered temptation to her. Even 
in our own time it is impossible to convince people that to 
handle toads does not induce warts. 

The alleged venom of the toad has likewise made him a 
considerable figure in medical science. In the seventeenth 
century he was regarded as a protection against the plague. 
There is a good passage to this effect in one of the odd- 
est pieces of strange learning ever produced by mortal 
man. Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse touching the Cure of 
Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy, originally delivered 
in 1657 before a learned assembly at Montpellier. Digby 
believed that he could heal a wound by treating, not the 
patient, but some article that was stained with the patient's 
blood, — the knife, for instance, that had done the injury. 

1 Satires, i, 70; vi, 659. 



Il6 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

He had obtained the secret from a CarmeHte friar, who had 
learned it in the East. He put it in practice on James 
Howell, whose hand was badly cut in an affray and was in 
danger of gangrene. In this case it was Howell's garter, 
which had been used as a bandage, that Digby treated, 
with the happiest results, and to the delight and amaze- 
ment of King James I. There can be no doubt about the 
cure, though we should now be inclined to ascribe it, not 
to Digby's honest hocus-pocus, but to his advice to Howell 
to throw away the plasters and medicaments which the 
doctors had applied and to keep the wound clean. We are 
at present concerned, however, not so much with the facts 
as with the theory on which they were accounted for. This 
is set forth with much skill and eloquence in Digby's Dis- 
course. There is, he believes, a subtle relation, or sym- 
pathy, between anything that has at any time been a part 
of one, like a severed limb or shed blood, and the person 
himself, and this relation persists even at considerable dis- 
tances. It operates by a constant stream of emanations, 
so to speak, which are merely one form of a system of sym- 
pathies which bind like things together in the order of 
nature. The same theory underlies the belief (still more 
or less prevalent) that a man feels pain when an amputated 
leg or arm is maltreated or not comfortably disposed of.^ 

The interest which Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic 
powder roused throughout the civilized world finds its 
reflection in the Harvard Theses for A. M. In 1693 these 
seem to assume complete belief in the reality of the cure, 
but evince some scruples as to its propriety : " Is the cure 
of Vi^ounds by sympathetic powder lawful?" The same 
question was debated in 1708. Of course, the doubt was 
whether sorcery entered into the method used by Sir 

1 A case of this kind is described in a letter written by John Winthrop, 
F.R.S., to Cotton Mather in 17 16 (Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 6th Series, V, 
333-4)- 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER 11/ 

Kenelm. The decision in both years favored the legality 
of sympathetic cures, and indeed it is difficult to see how 
their perfect innocence can have been doubted by anyone 
who had read the discourse in which Digby, rejecting 
all mystery, endeavored to explain in the most rigidly 
scientific fashion the whys and wherefores of what so 
many persons regarded as the greatest wonder of the age. 
The question " Is there a magnetic method of curing 
wounds?" was discussed in 1698 and settled affirmatively, 
and in 1703, 1708, 1710, " Is there a sympathetic powder? " 
was similarly answered.^ 

Closely associated with sympathetic powder is the 
general doctrine of magnetic treatment, concerning which 
we have Digby's remarkable letter to John Winthrop the 
Younger, describing the curing of ague by hanging the 
parings of the patient's nails round the neck of an eel.^ 

Digby illustrates his sympathetic philosophy by many 
curious examples, and thus he comes to speak of toads 
as an antidote to the pestilence: "In time of common 
Contagion," he says, " they use to carry about them the 
powder of a Toad, and sometimes a living Toad or Spider 
shut up in a box; or else they carry Arsenick, or some 
other venomous substance, which draws unto it the con- 
tagious air, which otherwise would infect the party: and 
the same powder of a Toad draws unto it the poison of a 
Plague-soar, The Farcey is a venemous and contagious 
humour within the body of an Horse ; hang a Toad about 
the neck of the Horse in a little bag, and he will be cured 
infallibly; the Toad, which is the stronger poison, drawing 
to it the venom which was within the Horse." ^ 

Van Helmont also believed in the efficacy of the toad 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, XVHI, 132. 

2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 3d Series, X, 17. 

^ A Late Discourse, etc., rendered faithfully out of French into English 
by R. White, 4th ed., London, 1664, pp. 76-77. 



Il8 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

as a remedy or prophylactic, though his theory of its 
operation was somewhat different from Digby's. A dis- 
ciple of Helmont's once put the prescription to the test, 
and has left an account of the result in a very rare book 
called The Pest Anatomized, which appeared in 1666. 
This was George Thomson, one of the leaders in the revolt 
against the Galenical or " regular" physicians which made 
so much noise in England in the seventeenth century, and, 
in spite of the vagaries of the innovators, accomplished a 
great reform in medical practice. In 1665, when the 
plague was raging in London, Thomson had the courage 
to dissect a " pestilential body " in the hope of making 
some discovery that might be of advantage to mankind. 
He took the infection, and since the two best physicians 
of his own school were suffering from the disease and he 
would trust no Galenist, he was obliged to treat himself. 
His principal effort was to support nature, instead of 
weakening it by the bleedings and heroic purges then 
most in favor, and to induce perspiration. But he also 
had recourse to the batrachian cure. He hung a large 
dried toad about his neck, and he assures us solemnly that 
the creature " became so tumefied, distended, (as it were 
blown up) " with the venom which it attracted from the 
patient's body into its own " that it was an object of 
wonder to those that beheld it." ^ Thomson adds a queer 
bit of experimental philosophy regarding the toad: "It 
is observed," he says, " that the Biifo is a Creature so 
extreamly fearful, that if you take the advantage to look 
upon it with a firmly fixed intentive eye for a quarter of 
an hour, there being no avoidance of your countenance, 
it will shortly dye with very terrour, as I have tryed." ^ 

Thomson got well and lived to write his book. We 
need not suspect him of lying, but we shall do well to 

1 AOIMOTOMIA : or the Pest Anatomized, London, 1666, p. 86. 

2 The same, p. 170. 



THE TOAD AND THE SPIDER II9 

remember that one effect of the plague, as he says himself, 
was to disorder the intellect of the sufferer for the time 
being. 

So much for the venom of the toad. As to spiders, it 
is well known that some of them are dangerous, and 
popular credulity is prone to generalize. The testimony 
of the Rev. John Beal, a friend of Boyle the physicist, will 
suffice. "I think," he writes in 1663, "this land and 
climate does not breed stronger or quicker poison in any 
vegetable, animal, serpent, or insectile, than in the spider, 
though I have heard of some men, that can eat and digest 
spiders; and I have seen young turkeys eat them for an 
antidote, and particularly when strawberries, (either in 
kind, or in quantity, as causing a surfeit) was their poison, 
and had killed many, that had not eaten spiders." ^ 

Spiders, like toads, were hung about the patient's neck, 
as a remedy for divers diseases. Ashmole, the antiquary, 
when suffering from ague, resorted to this specific. In his 
diary we read, on May II, 168 1: ** I took, early in the morn- 
ing, a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about 
my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo Gratias! " ^ 

What Mr. Thomas thought of spiders we do not know; 
but he had enlightened views on the subject of toads and 
snakes. In his Farmer's Calendar for May, 18 13, we 
find: — "I never suffer any of my family to kill those 
little innocent animals called striped snakes, for they do 
me much service in destroying grasshoppers, and other 
troublesome insects. Toads are of essential service, es- 
pecially in a garden, to eat up cabbage-worms, catter- 
pillars, &c." 

The essential element in the story of the duel between 
the Toad and the Spider lies in the doctrine that animals 
know what is good for them, and in particular that they 

1 Letter to Robert Boyle, Boyle's Works, ed. Birch, 1744, V, 455. 

2 W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine, London, 1883, p. 60. 



120 THE OLD FARMER S ALMANACK 

instinctively seek curative herbs when they have suffered 
an injury. This doctrine is universal. It finds poetical 
expression in Alphonsus, a tragedy by Shakspere's un- 
fortunate contemporary Robert Greene : — 

The silly serpent, found by country swain, 

And cut in pieces by his furious blows, 

Yet if his head do 'scape away untouch'd, 

As many write, it very strangely goes 

To fetch an herb, with which in little time 

Her batter'd corpse again she doth conjoin : 

But if by chance the ploughman's sturdy staff 

Do hap to hit upon the serpent's head. 

And bruise the same, though all the rest be sound, 

Yet doth the silly serpent lie for dead, 

Nor can the rest of all her body serve 

To find a salve which may her life preserve.^ 

One of the most curious accounts of this instinctive 
recognition of remedies by the lower animals is that given 
by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Irish Topography.^ Ac- 
cording to the not altogether trustworthy evidence of this 
imaginative twelfth-century writer, the weasels in Ireland, 
when their young have been killed by an injury, restore 
them to life by means of a certain yellow flower. Giraldus 
declares that he is following the testimony of eye-witnesses 
who have killed young weasels for the sake of experiment. 
The creature, we are told, first blows in the wound and in 
the mouth and nostrils of the dead animal, and then applies 
the flower in question, with the happiest effect. There is 
a similar incident in the Old French lay of Eliduc, written 
by Marie de France about 1180, in which a human being 
is brought to life by a friend who notices the actions of 
the weasels and applies his observation. Examples might 
be multiplied indefinitely, but perhaps we have had enough 
of Toads and Spiders. 

1 Works, ed. Dyce, London, 1831, II, 14. 

2 Topographia Hibernica, i, 27, Opera, ed. Dimock, V, 60-61. 



SUGAR AND SALT 

IN his generous enthusiasm for America and American 
products, the author of the Farmer's Almanack does 
not forget Maple Sugar. He regards it as prefer- 
able in every way to the sugar imported from the West 
Indies, and believes that every humane and patriotic citi- 
zen should use it exclusively. Here are some of his pre- 
cepts, all under March, the proper month for " sugaring 
ofif": — 

1 794. Attend to making maple sugar. 

1798. Those who have trees will not neglect the making of 
maple sugar, which is not only the most wholesome and pleasant 
sweetening, but being the product of our own country, will ever 
have the preference by every true American. 

1800. As soon as the frost begins to quit its hold of the sugar 
maple, be prepared to take its luxuriant juice, as the first taken 
is much the richest. 

1 80 1. "A penny saved is as good as two-pence earned ; " that 
is, if you have maple trees, and have to buy sugar in the summer, 
you pay too dear for your rattle. 

1804. '* He that has money," says cousin Simpkins, " may eat 
honey. And so my home-made maple sweetening, must answer 
my purpose. Yet," continues he, " it affords me much consola- 
tion to reflect that my poor maple stuff, as they call it, possesses 
no mingled tears of misery ; no desponding slave ever groaned 
over my cauldrons or fanned them with his sighs : No ; this little 
lump in my hand is the reward of my own labour on my own 
farm." 

1805. Make your own sugar, and send not to the Indies for it. 
Feast not on the toil, pain and misery of the wretched. 



122 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

1807. Economy now calls your attention to your maple trees. 
Make all the sugar you can, for you know not what may happen 
to prevent its importation. Besides, there is a great satisfaction 
derived from living as much as possible upon the produce of 
one's own farm ; where no poor slave has toiled in sorrow and 
pain ; where no scoundrel has lorded over your fields ; but where 
honest industry walks peaceful amidst the smiling fruits of his 
labour. 

1808. Pies, puddings, and pancakes are best with sweetening, 
and as sugar is as cheap and agreeable an article as we can find 
for this use, we had better be attending to our cauldrons. Heaven 
has been extremely propitious to our country, in causing the 
growth of this valuable tree ; the maple. He who lives well, sees 
afar off. 

1 8 1 8. As for myself I have done using sugar, and feel much 
better for it. But those who will still use this luxury, as I shall 
call it, had better be attending to their maple trees. 

When Mr. Thomas began to issue his Almanac, in 
1792, and for years thereafter, many inland families used 
no sugar but that which they made themselves from the 
sap of the maple. Every farmer in the districts where 
these trees flourish wished to have his " sugar orchard," 
and " sugaring off" was as much a part of the agricultural 
year as plowing or haymaking. On the coast, cane sugar 
imported from the West Indies was in use, but this was of 
course more expensive to the farmer than that which he 
could extract from his own trees. In 1784 President Stiles 
of Yale noted in his Diary: — " Sixteen Thous*^ pounds of 
Maple Sugar made at Norfolk in one year about 1774- 
This year 1784 about one Third more. Sell at 6'* Y lb. or 
50/ T cw' made by 180 families. Now 230 families in Nor- 
folk. About one hundred fam^' made the sugar. Two 
pail fulls of sap make one pound — one Tree gives a pound 
a day. Mr. Robbins 2 little sons made two hundred weight 
of Sugar from one hundred Trees this year. Sugar Works 



SUGAR AND SALT 1 23 

in Goshen have lasted above fourty years & still good." ^ 
"The sugar," wrote Jeremy Belknap about 1792, " is clear 
gain to the industrious husbandman." The sap was col- 
lected and boiled down at a time of year when there was 
little or nothing to do on the farm, and the yield was gener- 
ous, with small labor, — labor, too, which partook of the 
nature of frolic and therefore was scarcely felt as work at 
all. Belknap remarks that " one man and a boy have col- 
lected a sufficiency of sap for five hundred pounds of sugar, 
and a man, with two boys, for seven hundred. The boil- 
ing is often performed by women." ^ The syrup, or that 
portion of the sap which would not granulate, was a 
substitute for molasses. The Due de la Rochefoucault- 
Liancourt, driven from his native country by the French 
Revolution, spent some three years (i 795-1 797) in the 
United States and Canada. He was a philosophical trav- 
eller of the school of Arthur Young, and was sufficiently 
interested in maple sugar to set down what he could learn 
about it under no less than twelve heads. In general he 
testifies to the fact that he found no scarcity of excellent 
sugar.^ 

In 1794 the English clothier, Henry Wansey, in com- 
menting on the" excellent provisions " served at Frederick 
Bull's tavern in Hartford, remarks that there were " three 
sorts of sugar brought always to the table ; — the musco- 
vado,* the fine lump sugar, and the maple." " From the 
novelty of it," he adds, " I preferred the last, though I could 
not find much difference in the taste of it." ^ This is curi- 
ous, since maple sugar certainly has a flavor of its own. 
Bull's lump sugar was a rarity, not to be expected in any 

1 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, May 19, 1784, ed. Dexter, III, 121. 

2 History of New Hampshire, 1792, HI, 116. 
2 Travels, Englisli translation, 1799, I, 125-6. 
* I. e., raw sugar. 

^ Journal of an Excursion to the United States of America in the Summer 
of 1794, Salisbury, 1796, pp. 60-61. 



124 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

but first-class inns. At Durham, in the same State, the 
traveller was not so well satisfied. The tavern was " a very 
mean house, the worst he had seen." The bread was " cake 
made of rye, and only half baked " ; the beefsteaks for 
breakfast were fried in lard ; the tea and coffee were smoky. 
Here, of course, only maple sugar was provided. Appar- 
ently Wansey spoke of it with appreciation, for one of his 
fellow-passengers — a Yankee with an eye to business — 
offered him five hundred weight of it for fourpence half- 
penny sterling a pound ; " but," adds Wansey regretfully, 
" it is contrary to the laws of England to import it." ^ 

The art of making maple sugar was learned by the set- 
tlers from the Indians, who had practised it from time im- 
memorial. A brief description of the art as practised by 
the savages of Canada " longer then any now living among 
them can remember," was pubUshed by the Royal Society 
in 1685.2 In 1720 Paul Dudley communicated to the same 
learned body another account of the process, which was 
duly printed in the Philosophical Transactions;^ but he 
does not mention the Indians. " Our physicians," he 
avers, " look upon it not only to be as good for common 
use as the West India sugar, but to exceed all other for its 
medicinal virtue." We have seen that toward the end of 
the eighteenth century this sugar was in common use in 
New England. The farmer who was fortunate enough 
to have a sugar orchard valued it highl}'-, and counted 
upon its product as a regular part of his supplies for the 
year. It appears, however, that although the white people 
had early observed the practice of the Indians in this re- 
spect, they were rather slow in imitating them to any extent. 
Thus, in the highly interesting volume entitled Historical 
Memoirs Relating to the Housatunnuk Indians, by the Rev. 

1 Journal, as above, p. 64. 

2 Philosophical Transactions, XV, 988. 

3 Philosophical Transactions, XXXI, 27-28. 



SUGAR AND SALT 12$ 

Samuel Hopkins of Springfield, published in 1753, there is 
a long note on the subject, which concludes with the sug- 
gestion that it would be prudent for farmers to spare their 
maple trees, and to utilize them from year to year in supply- 
ing themselves with sugar and molasses. Mr. Hopkins 
also suggests that rum, which we must remember was re- 
garded as a necessity by our ancestors, might perhaps be 
made of the sap, though he says that the experiment has 
not been tried so far as he knows. If the sap is fermented, 
he remarks, after three or four barrels have been reduced 
to one by boiling, it " makes a very pleasant drink which 
is sufficiently spirituous." His account of Indian sugar- 
making is worth transcribing for its antiquarian signifi- 
cance, and his economic speculations are curious: — 

The Indians make their Sugar of the Sap of Maple Trees. 
They extract the Sap by cutting the tree on one Side, in such a 
Form as that the Sap will naturally gather into a small Channel 
at the Bottom of the Hole cut ; where they fix into the Tree a 
small Chip, of 6 or 8 Inches long, which carries the Sap off from 
the Tree, into a Vessel set to receive it. Thus they tap a Number 
of Trees ; and, when the Vessels are full, they gather the Sap, and 
boil it to such a Degree of Consistence, as to make Sugar. After 
it is boil'd, they take it off the Fire, and stir it till it is cold, which 
is their Way of graining it. The Sugar is very good, of a very 
agreable Taste, and esteemed the most wholesome of any. It 
might doubtless be made in great Plenty; and, I cannot but 
think, to the great Profit of the Undertakers. If some Man would 
build him a Sugar- House, and provide a set oi Boilers, and other 
Utensils as they have in the West-Indies, I am persuaded he would 
find his Account in it, beyond what those in the West-Indies can 
do. For the Gentleman, who hath a Plantation in the West- 
Indies, is at great Expence in preparing his Ground ; planting 
his Cane, and cultivating it for more than a Year, before it is fit 
for Use : in cutting, triming, and toping it ; for Mills to grind it ; 
and not till all this be done is the Sap of the Cane ready for boil- 



126 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

ing. All this Charge might be substracted from the Gentleman's 
Account, who uses Maple Trees instead of Cane, except the Ex- 
pence of taping the Trees, and gathering the Sap, which is as 
nothing compar'd with the other. 

It is true indeed, that the Sap of Maple Trees is not so rich as 
that of the Sugar Cane ; but I suppose the Disproportion is not 
by far so great as that of the Expence. For, I have been inform'd 
that two Men, under the Disadvantage of boiling it in two Kettles, 
and in the open Air, have, in a good Season, made a Barrel in a 
Week. What then would a Number of Hands do, with a Sett of 
West-India Boilers, Coolers, and other Advantages of Dispatch, 
which they are furnish'd with? Trees fit for this Business are 
very plenty, in the vast uncultivated Wilderness between Con- 
necticut and Hudson's Rivers, as also in all the Northern Borders 
of this Province. And, could the one Half of them be us'd, I 
suppose they would more than furnish all the British Colonies 
upon the Continent with Sugar} 

The scarcity of all imported articles during the Revolu- 
tionary War, which led to so many eccentric substitutions, 
could not fail to turn speculative minds towards the possi- 
bilities of native sugar-making. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the 
celebrated Pennsylvania surgeon, and a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, conducted an experiment, 
at which Alexander Hamilton was present, to prove that 
maple sugar is not inferior in strength to that from the 
West Indies. In 1791 he sent a paper on the subject to 
the American Philosophical Society, in which he displayed 
much freedom of scientific fancy. His mere facts, to be 
sure, are sober enough. " For a great number of years 
many hundred private families in New- York and Pennsyl- 
vania have supplied themselves plentifully with this sugar 
during the whole year," He has heard of " many families 
who have made from two to four hundred pounds in a 

1 Historical Memoirs, Boston, 1753, p. 26. 



SUGAR AND SALT 12/ 

year; and of one man who sold six hundred pounds, all 
made with his own hands in one season." But his hopes 
are extravaj^ant and go far beyond the speculations of 
Mr. Hopkins. He thought that we might develop this 
industry so far as not only to supply the domestic market, 
but to export enough to destroy the sugar plantations in 
the West Indies, which from the settlement of this country 
had been the chief source of our supply. This hope gave 
him pleasure not only on economic grounds, but for 
humane reasons as well. He actually imagined that maple 
sugar might enfranchise the West Indian slaves. We 
might export enough, perhaps, " to render the commerce 
and slavery of our African brethren in the sugar islands 
as unnecessary, as it has always been inhuman and unjust." ^ 
The sanguine character of this prophecy may be under- 
stood when we remember that in the preceding year 
(1790) the United States had imported more than seven- 
teen and a half million pounds of brown sugar from the 
West Indies, and more than two hundred thousand pounds 
of loaf sugar and other varieties. In 1798, the total 
importation of brown sugar amounted to nearly sixty-seven 
million pounds, and that of loaf sugar etc. to more than 
twenty and a half million pounds. Of the former more 
than five-sevenths came from the West Indies, and the 
rest from the East Indies chiefly, that trade having 
developed in the meantime ; of the loaf sugar practically 
the whole amount was West Indian.^ Maple sugar is a 
palatable and wholesome luxury — "an agreeable sweet," 
as Dr. Belknap calls it, — but it was not destined to eman- 
cipate the slaves of the sugar islands. That did not come 

1 Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical, Philadelphia, 1798, pp. 
284, 285-6, 294. 

2 The World's Sugar Production and Consum]:>tion, 1800-1900, Monthly 
Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States, Jan., 1902, 
pp. 2683-4. 



128 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

till 1834, and it required an Act of Parliament arid d. douceur 
of ^16,500,000. 

Dr. Rush's forecast seems absurd enough nowadays, 
and we may accuse him of being more of a humanitarian 
than an economist. One thing, however, he could not pre- 
dict, — the sugar industry of our own South. At the very 
time when Rush was reading his essay, Antonio Mendez, 
of New Orleans, was making the first sugar ever produced 
in that State, and in the following year (1792) Rendon, 
the Spanish intendant, used as a curiosity a small quantity 
of his loaf sugar at a banquet. A few years later, Etienne 
de Bore produced sugar in Louisiana in paying quantities, 
and in or about 1820, the introduction of the purple or red 
ribbon canes, native to Java, settled the main business of 
that State for good and all.^ All this Dr. Rush could 
not foresee, any more than he could predict the Louisiana 
Purchase of 1803, or the enormous development of the 
beet-sugar industry in our own day, 

Philadelphia was fertile in projects. A few years after 
Dr. Rush read his paper on the maple, experiments were 
tried in that city with a view to procuring a supply of 
sugar from watermelons. Half a pint of syrup was 
obtained " by gradually boiling the strained pulp and juice 
of a melon that weighed 14 lb." Bordley, the writer of an 
esteemed work on husbandry, who had tasted a sample, 
computes that at this rate an acre of land would produce a 
hundred and forty-three dollars' worth of syrup. " Here," 
he adds, " are flattering circumstances to induce experi- 
ments that may prove how easily the country family may 
become independent of foreign countries for sweets of the 
class of sugars, and at a very cheap rate." ^ There was 
also an idea, — though not, perhaps, in Philadelphia, — 

1 W. C. Stubbs, Sugar Cane, [1898?], pp. 6-10. 

2 J. B. Bordley, Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural Affairs, 2d ed., 
Philadelphia, 1801, pp. 530, 531. 



SUGAR AND SALT 1 29 

that molasses might be made from sweet apples. This 
project was mentioned by Timothy Pickering in an address 
before the Essex (Massachusetts) Agricultural Society in 
1820. Mr. Pickering admitted that he "had never tasted 
any sweet apple molasses " and that it probably had not 
" the rich sweet of molasses from the sugar cane," but he 
thought it might do well enough " for family uses in 
general." He knew a gentleman of first-rate practical 
judgment who maintained "that it would not be difficult, 
by forming orchards of sweet apples, to supply molasses 
for the general consumption of the United States." ^ We 
hear also of molasses from cornstalks as manufactured in 
considerable quantities, about 1792, by Captain Jonathan 
DevoU, one of the New England settlers at Farmers' Castle 
(Belpre) on the Ohio.^ 

Dr. Rush and his fellow-experimenters were not the 
only prophetic dreamers on this continent whose economic 
visions were never to be realized. Sugar suggests salt^ 
and at about the time when the learned Philadelphian was 
conducting his experiments with maple syrup, another in- 
dustry was establishing itself in Eastern Massachusetts with 
far better prospect of profit and permanence. In 1800 the 
Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, then in the sixth year of his 
presidency of Yale College, made a never-to-be-forgotten 
journey to the extremity of Cape Cod. At Yarmouth his 
eyes were greeted with a novel spectacle, the salt-works. 
In the next town, Dennis, he studied this interesting enter- 
prise with pleased amazement. Always on the alert for 
anything that promised a combination of material prosperity 
with moral and religious advancement, this learned theo- 
logian and entertaining writer deliberately spread the 
wings of his imagination for a dignified flight: — 

1 Discourse read before the Essex Agricultural Society, in Massachusetts, 
Feb. 21, 1820, Salem, 1820, p. 26. 

2 S. P. Hildreth, Pioneer History, Cincinnati, 1848, p. 393. 

9 



I30 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

The sight of these works excited in my mind a train of thought, 
which others, perhaps, will pronounce romantic. I could not 
easily avoid thinking, however, that this business might one day 
prove the source of a mighty change in the face of this country. 
The American coast, as you know, is chiefly barren, and of course 
thinly inhabited. It is also almost everywhere low and level ; 
and therefore, while it is unsuited to most other employments, is 
remarkably fitted to this. Why, then, may it not be believed, 
that many thousands of persons may, one day, be profitably em- 
ployed in making salt along the immense extent of our shore? 
Why may not comfort, and even wealth be easily, as well as use- 
fully, obtained here by great multitudes, who otherwise might 
hardly earn a subsistence ? For ought that appears, this business 
may be followed with success and profit, to an extent, which it 
would be very difficult to define. A small capital is sufficient to 
begin the employment with advantage. The demand for salt is 
at present very great, and is every year increasing. There are 
^^iSii) seven millions of inhabitants within the United States: 
within a moderate period there will be seventy. The West-Indian 
sources, from which we principally derive this necessary article 
of life, are now more than sufficient. The time is near, in which 
the demand will exceed the supplies from that quarter. To what 
means can the inhabitants of this country so naturally betake 
themselves, as to those which I have specified? Will they not 
of course erect works of this nature, in succession, from St. 
Mary's to Machias? Will not comfort, therefore, and even 
affluence, spring up on sands and wastes, which now seem 
doomed to everlasting desolation? Will not towns and villages 
smile in tracts, which are now condemned to gloom and soli- 
tude? May not multitudes, who habitually spend life in casual 
and parsimonious efforts to acquire a bare subsistence, inter- 
luded with long periods of sloth and drunkenness, become sober, 
diligent, and even virtuous, and be formed for usefulness and 
immortality?^ 

1 Timothy Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York, New Haven, 
1822, III, 81-82. 



SUGAR AND SALT 13I 

The object of Dr. Dwight's poetic fancy was worthy of 
his best efforts, and we may well pause a moment to con- 
template the rise and fall of an almost forgotten industry. 

"Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt?" 
asks the protesting Job. With the ocean at their very 
doors, no wonder the colonists of New England early 
turned their attention to the manufacture of salt by evapo- 
ration. In 1624 a salt-maker was sent from England to 
instruct the Plymouth settlers in the art. The experiment 
failed dismally. Its ill success is graphically described by 
Governor Bradford,^ whose disgust at the empty boasting 
of the pretender to special knowledge is a matter of 
record : — 

He whom they sent to make salte was an ignorante, foolish, 
self-willd fellow ; he bore them in hand he could doe great 
matters in making salt-works, so he was sente to seeke out fitte 
ground for his purpose ; and after some serch he tould y* Gov' 
that he had found a sufficente place, with a good botome to hold 
water, and otherwise very conveniente, which he doubted not but 
in a short time to bring to good perfection, and to yeeld them 
great'profite; but he must have 8. or ten men to be constantly 
imployed. He was wisht to be sure that y" ground was good, 
and other things answerable, and y' he could bring it to perfection ; 
otherwise he would bring upon them a great charge by imploying 
him selfe and so many men. But he was, after some trial), so 
confidente, as he caused them to send carpenters to rear a great 
frame for a large house, to receive y* salte & such other uses. 
But in y^ end all proved vaine. Then he layed fault of y'= ground, 
in which he was deceived ; but if he might have the lighter to 
cary clay, he was sure that he could doe it. Now though y^ 
Gov'' & some other foresaw that this would come to litle, yet 
they had so many mahgnant spirits amongst them, that would 
have laid it upon them, in their letters of complainte to y*" adven- 
turers, as to be their falte y' would not suffer him to goe on to 

1 Bradford, History of Phmouth Plantation, Boston, 1898, pp. 203-4. 



132 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

bring his work to perfection ; for as he by his bould confidence 
& large promises deceived them in England that sente him, so he 
had wound him selfe in to these mens high esteeme hear, so as 
they were faine to let him goe on till all men saw his vanity. For 
he could not doe any thing but boyle salt in pans, & yet would 
make them y' were joynd with him beleeve ther was so grat a 
misterie in it as was not easie to be attained, and made them doe 
many unnecessary things to blind their eys, till they discerned 
his sutltie. The next yere he was sente to Cap- Anne, and y* pans 
were set up ther wher the fishing was ; but before sorrier was out, 
he burte the house, and the fire was so vehemente as it spoyld the 
pans, at least some of them, and this was the end of that charg- 
able bussines. 

Salt was one of the main sources of income on which the 
investors in the Massachusetts Bay Company relied for 
their profits. In the preliminary financiering which came 
before the emigration, we find salt-making mentioned 
among the four great monopolies which the adventurers 
felt authorized to dispose of.^ Experiments began early. 
That inventive genius, John Winthrop the Younger, had 
a process of his own devising, — "a compendious and 
cheap way," as it is called by the Secretary of the Royal 
Society in a letter in which he begs Winthrop to communi- 
cate it to the savants of the mother country .^ In 1638 
Winthrop was authorized to build salt-works at " Ryall- 
Side," now a part of Beverly, and it is probable that he 
got to work as early as the spring of 1639.^ Subsequently 
he received further privileges of the same nature, and the 
General Court made an agreement with him for the price of 
" good white salt at Boston, Charlestown, Salem, Ipswich, 

1 Mass. Colony Records, I, 64. 

2 Henry Oldenburg to John V^^inthrop, Jr., Aug. 3, 1664, Coll. Mass. 
Hist. Soc, 3d Series, X, 48 ; cf. X, 49 ff. Winthrop's process required fire. 

^ T. F. Waters, Sketch of the Life of John Winthrop the Younger, 
Ipswich Hist. Soc. Publ., VH (1S99), 25. 



SUGAR AND SALT I 33 

and Salisbury." There are many other entries of a similar 
character scattered through the colonial records of our 
Commonwealth. All who are familiar with Judge Sewall's 
Diary will remember the salt-works on Boston Neck in 
which he was financially interested. *' Salt was the will-o'- 
wisp of seventeenth century manufacture." ^ Efforts were 
repeatedly made to extract this essential commodity from 
the sea. It seemed wasteful to import it from the West 
Indies, or from Spain and Portugal, when the ocean came 
up to one's very doors. It was needed in large quantities 
for curing fish and other purposes, and its scarcity, in 
Mr. Weeden's words, " limited enterprise." Some of the 
West India salt was of inferior quality. That from the 
Tortugas discolored the fish. Projectors were often 
encouraged by special grants and privileges, but with 
slight results. None of the early experiments turned 
out well. 

Evaporation was effected by means of artificial heat. 
But, cheap as wood was in those days, this process was 
wasteful and laborious, and much of the profit went up in 
smoke. In 1776 the Continental Congress procured the 
circulation of a pamphlet on the " Art of Making Common 
Salt, particularly adapted to the use of the American Colo- 
nies," being an essay which appeared in the Pennsylvania 
Magazine for March of that year. The pamphlet was pub- 
lished at Philadelphia by order of the General Assembly 
of Pennsylvania, and was immediately reprinted at Boston. 
It calls attention to the manufacture of the so-called " bay- 
salt " by evaporation, as practised in the French marshes, 
and urges the Colonies to institute it, since boiling is more 
expensive and produces an inferior article. Little came 
of this, however, for, as in the colonial days, it was impos- 
sible to find natural soil suitable for retaining the brine 

^ Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, Boston, 1890, 
I. 169. 



134 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

during evaporation. In the same year, however, Capt. 
John Sears, of Dennis, devised a new method of evaporat- 
ing salt-water by means of the sun's rays. Of course he 
was laughed at, but he persevered, and after several fail- 
ures he succeeded in getting salt in paying quantities.^ 
The Revolution was very favorable to the industry. The 
chief source of foreign supply had been the West Indies, 
and scarcity began to be felt as soon as the war broke out. 
In July, 1775, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts 
restricted the ration of each soldier to a gill a week. 
Premiums were offered by several colonies for the estab- 
lishment of salt-works, bounties on salt were voted now 
and again, and the matter attracted the serious attention 
of the Continental Congress,^ as we have seen. 

A particular account of the process of salt-making on 
Cape Cod, — a method which produced both the common 
article and the medicinal substances known as Epsom and 
Glauber's salts, — was contributed in 1 802, by Dr. James 
Thacher, of Plymouth, to the Memoirs of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences.^ At this time the business 
was flourishing. There was a considerable duty on im- 
ported salt, and the domestic manufacturer counted upon 
a yearly profit of from twenty-five to thirty-five per cent. 
Dr. Thacher is almost as enthusiastic about the future of 
the industry as Dr. Dwight. In due time, he thinks, " we 
may exhibit upon our shores a source of wealth little in- 
ferior to the celebrated salt mine of Cracow." 

Fifteen years later the traveller Kendall was entertained 
by Richard Sears, one of the principal salt manufacturers 
of Chatham, and collected much information on the subject. 
He learned that some four hundred thousand dollars was 

1 For a full account of his process see Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1802, VHI, 

2 See Smith, On the Scarcity of Salt in the Revolutionary War, Proc. 
Mass. Hist. Soc, XV, 221 ff. 

3 Vol. II, Part II, pp. 107 ff. 



SUGAR AND SALT 135 

invested in salt-works in Barnstable County, and that the 
annual production amounted to a hundred thousand bushels, 
besides a considerable quantity of Glauber's salts. In Den- 
nis, the original home of the process then in use, the vats 
covered an area of more than 650,000 square feet. The 
product was of excellent quality, superior in strength, it 
was said, to the best imported salt by one-fifth.^ 

Thoreau found the salt-works a picturesque feature of 
the landscape when he made his tour of the Cape in 1849. 
" The wind-mills on the hills, — large weather-stained oc- 
tagonal structures, — and the salt-works scattered all along 
the shore, with their long rows of vats resting on poles 
driven into the marsh, their low, turtle-like roofs, and their 
slighter wind-mills, were novel and interesting objects to 
an inlander."^ All this has vanished. The salt springs of 
Onondaga proved a formidable rival.^ The removal of the 
duty on foreign salt, with the increase in the cost of lumber 
and the rise in wages, made the business unprofitable, and 
the mills and vats were suffered to go to wreck, or re- 
moved and their materials utilized for the cheaper kinds 
of building. 

Many will remember the large boards, fantastically 
marked with the stains of spreading rust and marine chem- 
icals, but rendered almost proof against decay by their long 
contact with " lingering pickle," which twenty-five years 
ago were so plentifully worked up into sheds and barns, 
and even houses, in all parts of Cape Cod. President 
Dwight's prophetic vision of an Atlantic coast lined with 
salt-works was not destined to be fulfilled. In Barnstable, 
for instance, where in 1808 there were half-a-million square 

1 E. A. Kendall, Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States, 
New York, 1809, II, 131 ff. 

2 Cape Cod, Stage-Coach Views, ed. 1877, pp. 19-20. 

^ See Benj. De Witt, Memoir on the Onondaga Salt Springs, Albany, 
1798; cf. S. P. Hildreth, Pioneer History, Cincinnati, 1848, pp. 409, 475-7. 



136 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

feet of vats, there is nothing to mark the site of the manu- 
facture but a few indentations in the marsh, once reser- 
voirs, and a single gallows-like structure, fallen into ruin, 
and scarcely recognizable as the timber frame of an old 
windmill. 



THE FLYING STATIONER 

THE last page of the Almanac for 1797, in the course 
of a long advertisement of Mr. Thomas's book and 
stationery business at Sterling,^ makes particular 
mention of " Small Histories, Chapmen's Book[s], &c." 
and goes on to enumerate " Female Policy Detected, 
French Convert, Royal do.. History of the Holy Bible, 
Seven Wise Masters, Robinson Crusoe, Tom Thumb's 
Exhibition, New Year's Gift, Little King Pippin, Moun- 
tain Piper — with a great 7iuinber of other small, entertain- 
ing histories'' This entry is of some importance to the 
bibliographer, who finds in such " small entertaining his- 
tories " at once his delight and his despair. The chapmen 
in question were, of course, book-peddlers, or what used to 
be called in Scotland " flying stationers." They are best 
known to literary historians and collectors of rare vol- 
umes, as well as to students of folk-lore, by the cheap little 
pamphlets of a popular character called " chapbooks," 
that is, books designed to be sold by chapmen or travel- 
ling traders. These were of every sort, as Mr. Thomas's 
advertisement indicates. Some were moral or prudential, 
but many aimed simply at entertainment. Jest books and 
garlands (or song-books) abounded. Many an old romance 
— like Guy of Warwick or Bevis of Hampton — found its 
last redaction in a condensed prose version meant to be 
hawked about the country. One of the most singular 
transformations of this kind is seen in the fate of the old 
tale of Barlaam and Joasaph. This was originally a col- 
1 See pp. 318 ff., below. 



138 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

lection of Buddhistic parables, but it gradually came to be 
understood as a Christian legend, and its popularity in this 
guise led to the admission of a supposed St. Josaphat into 
the Calendar of the Greek Church, — a saint in whom 
modern investigators have somewhat gleefully recognized 
the Buddha himself, the founder of the rival religion which 
has of late sent various learned and picturesque mission- 
aries to our shores. Finally the tale of Barlaam and 
Joasaph turns up in chapbook form as the History of 
King JehoshapJiat! 

The Seven Wise Masters, which appears in Mr. Thomas's 
list, is also of Oriental origin and has an equally long and 
complicated history. It gets its name from the Seven 
Sages to whom the education of the hero, a very accom- 
plished prince, has been entrusted. The prince is falsely 
accused by his stepmother and condemned to death. He 
cannot defend himself, for he has learned by inspecting 
the stars that he must speak no word for a week on pain 
of instant destruction. As he is being led to the scaffold, 
the first of his tutors stops the king and warns him that in 
putting his son to death he is acting as foolishly as the 
knight did when he killed his hound. Of course the king 
asks for the story, and the Sage agrees to tell it if he will 
give the prince a respite for one day. That night the 
queen convinces her husband, by a counter-story, that 
he is being tricked by his advisers, and he resolves to 
have his son executed next morning. This time the 
second Sage intervenes, and secures a postponement for 
another day. Thus the narrative proceeds, until the 
week is past and the prince is at liberty to speak. The 
queen is punished and the Seven Sages meet with well- 
merited honor. The reader will recognize the same kind 
of device for stringing stories together that is familiar to 
all in the Arabian Nights. The Seven Sages was vastly 
popular throughout Europe from the middle ages to 



THE FLYING STATIONER 1 39 

modern times and it deserved its popularity. It warms 
one's heart to meet with this old favorite, in its abbreviated 
chapbook form, on the shelves of the early New England 
booksellers. Michael Perry, of Boston, had three copies 
in stock when his inventory was taken in 1700, and they 
were valued in the lump at two shillings. The same 
document shows five copies of the History of Fortunatus, 
valued at three shillings and fourpence, and one copy of 
Godfrey of Bulloigne, valued at sixpence. Perry had also 
nine packs of playing cards on hand, as well as a good 
supply of sermons and theological works. ^ 

A good many chapbooks were reprinted in this country 
in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, and 
there were also not a few of American origin. Mr. Thomas 
was no doubt well furnished with both kinds. 

The Almanac itself was largely circulated by the itinerant 
booksellers, and in the Farmer's Calendar for January, 
1 82 1, there is a lively sketch of the arrival of such a 
chapman at a farmer's house and of the conversation 
between him and the daughter of an old customer. " Tim 
Twilight " is the felicitous name assigned to the merry 
itinerant: — 

" Bless my heart, mother, here comes old Tim Twilight the 
pedler again to wish us happy new year. Well, uncle Tim, it is 
just a year to a day since you was here before and sold me The 
life and adventures of Betty Buttermilk, dairywoman to the 
Duchess of Dumhiedikes. Come, let 's see, what have ye now, 
old daddy?" "Why, my pretty damsel, here's the works of 
Sir John Sinclair, the great Scotch farmer. Here 's another book 
called The Guide to Health. Shewing how a diligent hand 
maketh rich. Here 's another, called The Great Quiltrey at 
farmer Cleverly s. Hah ! what say ye to reading the life of 
My Lady Lummucks 1 But here 's the best of all, my Farmer's 

1 See the inventory as printed by Whitmore in his edition of John 
Dunton's Letters from New England, pp. 315, 316, 317. 



140 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Almanack. ... So my good friends, I must bid you good bye. 
If Providence gives me leave, I '11 call again in '22 — you may 
read over what is here in haste penn'd down ; it will serve to 
pass a winter evening or so. — Good bye." 

Tim Twilight sometimes greeted his friends and cus- 
tomers in rhyme. So in January, 1822: — 

"IN eighteen hundred twenty-two, 
I wish my friends a happy new- 
Year/ You see, I 've got more Al- 
Manacks; so thought I would just call 
And say, good morning to ye, honies ! 
'T is for no favour — save your monies." 

" Poh, uncle Tim," methinks you say, " give us no more 
paltry doggrel." Well, in plain prose, gentlemen and ladies, 
you see here ! come again, pop, at the hour ! I 'm come to tell 
many things good, and many things not so very good ; but the 
good and the bad in everything are all packed up together now- 
a-days. So here 's my almanacks ; they 've cost no little labour, 
I '11 assure ye. " Bless me," cried old Betty Winkle, " a man 
must have a monstrous long head, to make all these 'ere calcula- 
tions." Ah, good woman, indeed he must. The head of an 
almanack-maker is nothing more nor less than a telescope, reach- 
ing from pole to pole, and of sufficient diameter to embrace the 
whole face of the heavens above, and the earth beneath ! The 
firmament to him is a sort of checker-board, and the earth a bowl- 
ing-green ! Come, who buys my wares? Here 's the Sun, Moon 
and Stars all for sale ! 

And again in 1824: — 

Through drifting snow and cutting sleet 
I 've truged and toiled my friends to greet ; 
And tug'd beneath my lumb'ring gear 
To wish you all a happy year. 
Ye, gentle folks, shall I unpack. 
The precious store upon my back 



THE FLYING STATIONER 141 

My wallet, crowded to the brim, 
And all the wealth of Pedlar Tim ? 
I 've books of various sorts and sizes ; 
Come, buy, just as your fancy prizes. 

Walk up, gemmen ! Now 's your time to make a fortune! 
Come, who takes this ? Here is a Thacher's Orchardist ; a 
book that ought to be in the possession of every farmer. The 
price one dollar, and Capt. Thrifty says he would give five 
dollars rather than be without one. Here 's another excellent 
work, a Treatise on Gardening, by William Cobbett, the great 
Porcupine ! Be not afraid of his quills. The tiger is softened 
to the lamb. He was once as fierce as a bull ; but now he is as 
calm as a sheep. His arrows were as sharp as a pitchfork ; but, 
now they are as blunt as a beetle ! Now, my friends, is the 
time to read books, crack nuts and tell stories — so here 's 
another of my Almanacks, which contains as much as the former 
ones, and, I hope, as entertaining. 

In 1825 the genial itinerant called when a wedding was 
in progress and made himself quite at home: — 

Say, would you hear what fun and cheer 

We had at Simon's wedding, O .-' 
*T was New-Year's day, we pack'd away 

And thought no more of sledding, O — 

We had all got cleverly together, and the Parson had com- 
menced operations. The bow was already fixed around cousin 
Simon's neck and well pinned and the Parson was about fetching 
the bride under the yoke, when, who, the deuce should interrupt 
us but old Tim Twilight, the peddler! "Apropos," said he, as 
he burst in upon the ceremony, " I shall now find a market for 
my Treatise on Good-Housewifery." •'' Hush 1 " cried aunt 
Molly. " Mum ! " said uncle Tim, and so hush it was to the end 
of the service. Amen ! said the parson, " amen," cried uncle 
Tim. " And now, my good friends, will you suffer me to 
introduce the contents of a poor peddler's pack ; and give me 



142 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

leave to say, Sir Simon, that the next thing, after a wife, is an 
almanack. This, Sir, is the chart book of the whole voyage. — 
Here is another little work upon butter and cheese making. 
— Here 's the Farmer s Guide and here 's the Orchardist 
again — and here comes the very tiptop of the climax. Dr. 
Dean's Georgical Dictionary. Hah, a glass of wine — long life 
to matrimony.'" 

Tim's wares were not all chapbooks. Dr. Dean's Georgi- 
cal Dictionary, for instance, is a substantial volume, to 
which we shall return on another occasion,^ and the book- 
peddler in Theodore Sedgwick's Hints to my Countrymen, 
a rambling work published at Boston in 1826, had a good 
deal of solid literature in his pack. 

Ballads have formed a part of the peddler's stock in trade 
from time immemorial, and we may be sure Tim Twilight 
did not neglect them. There is a good scene in John 
Davis's Travels in the United States which illustrates this 
point. Davis, who was touring on foot in 1801, spent the 
night at a log-cabin in the woods of Virginia : — 

We had breakfasted next morning, and the old man was gone 
to cultivate his tobacco, when a pedlar came to the door. The 
appearance of Sam Lace lighted up joy in the eyes of Alary and 
Eliza. 

The pedlar first exhibited his ballads. •' Here," said he, " is 
the whole trial, examination, and condemnation of Jason Fair- 
banks, who was executed at Philadelphia for cutting off Peggy 
Plackefs head under a hedge on the road to Frankfort" 

Lord ! said Eliza, what a wicked fellow. I would not live in 
one of those great big towns for all the world ! But I wonder 
whether it is true? 

True ! replied Mary, certainly it is. Don't you see it is in 
print. 

" And here,' cried the pedlar, " is the account of a whale, that 

^ See p. 309, below. 



THE FLYING STATIONER I43 

was left ashore by the tide in the bay of Chesapeak, with a ship of 
five thousand tons in his belly, called the Merry Dane of Dover. 
She was the largest ship ever known." 

And is that true too? said Eliza, 

True ! cried Mary. How can you ask such a question ? Do 
you think they would put it in print if it were not true ? ^ 

Unfortunately this sketch cannot be accepted as a literal 
transcript from observation, since Davis, vi\\o was an ardent 
student of Shakspere, has copied it pretty closely from a 
well-known passage in The Winter's Tale. Autolycus, dis- 
guised as a peddler, is trafficking with the shepherd's son at 
the shearer's feast, and Mopsa begs the clown to buy some 
ballads. " I love a ballad in print a-life," says Mopsa, 
" for then we are sure they are true." One of the pieces 
offered by Autolycus is described as a " ballad of a fish 
that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the four- 
score of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and 
sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids : it was 
thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold 
fish." There are further resemblances between Shak- 
spere and our jocose traveller, but what has been quoted 
will suffice to show Davis's literary method. 

Yet Davis is not inventing; he is merely exercising the 
traveller's long-recognized right to embellish facts a little. 
Jason Fairbanks, to be sure, was not "executed at Phila- 
delphia for cutting off Peggy Placket's head under a hedge 
on the road to Frankfort " ; but he was executed at Ded- 
ham, Massachusetts, in 1801, for killing Betsy Fales with 
a penknife in a field near her father's house. This case, 
which presented some almost inexplicable features, at- 
tracted much attention and may well have been worked 
up by some balladist, according to a custom not yet quite 

1 Travels in the United States of America, 1798-1802, London, 1803, 
pp. 351-2. 



144 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

obsolete. It certainly gave rise to a very curious chap- 
book, published at Dedham in i8oi, — "The Solemn 
Declaration of the late Unfortunate Jason Fairbanks, 
from the Original Manuscript, composed and signed by 
himself, a very short time before his Death. To which 
is added, Some Account of his Life and Character. . . . 
The whole collected and published by Ebenezer Fair- 
banks, Jun., a Farmer of Dedham." ^ A Report of the 
Trial ^ was published in the same year and was widely 
circulated. 

There are many ballads extant from the early New Eng- 
land press. An odd detail with regard to them, as well 
as to chapbooks, is preserved by the late Joseph T. Buck- 
ingham, and his reminiscence has to do with the decade 
in which the Farmer's Almanack began to appear. Mr. 
Buckingham was in 1796 an apprentice in the office of 
Thomas Dickman, proprietor of the Greenfield (Massachu- 
setts) Gazette. " The apprentices (there were two beside 
me) had the privilege," he says, " of printing such small 
jobs as they might obtain, without interfering with the 
regular business of the office, — and, as we clubbed our 
labors, we not unfrequently gathered a few shillings by 
printing ballads and small pamphlets for peddlers, who, at 
that time, were tolerably good customers to country 
printers."^ 

President Dwight, who was a stern moralist, and whose 
experience with the peddlers of Connecticut must have 
been extensive, is rather severe on old Tim Twilight's 
brethren, though he does not specify the trade in books. 
In speaking of Suffield, he expostulates with fortune in his 
inimitably dignified manner: — 

1 Dedham : from the Minerva Press of H. Mann, and sold at his Office, 
and by E. Fairbanks, Jun., 1801. 

2 Boston, Printed by Russell and Cutler, 1801. 

8 Buckingham, Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life, 
Boston, 1852, I, 26. 



THE FLYING STATIONER 1 45 

A considerable number of the inhabitants of this part of the 
State have for many years employed themselves in peddling several 
kinds of articles, of small value, in many parts of this country. 
The proprietor loads with these one or more horses ; and either 
travels himself, or sends an agent, from place to place, until he 
has bartered or sold them. In expeditions of this nature con- 
siderable numbers have spent no small part of their lives. 

The consequences of this employment, and of all others like it, 
are generally malignant. Men, who begin life with bargaining 
for small wares, will almost invariably become sharpers. The 
commanding aim of every such man will soon be to make a good 
bargain : and he will speedily consider every gainful bargain as a 
good one. The tricks of fraud will assume, in his mind, the same 
place, which commercial skill and an honourable system of deal- 
ing hold in the mind of a merchant. Often employed in dis- 
putes, he becomes noisy, pertinacious, and impudent. A great 
body of the inhabitants in this part of the country are exempted 
from any share in these remarks ; and sustain the same respect- 
able character, which is common throughout New-England. Still, 
I beheve this unfortunate employment to have had an unhappy 
influence on both the morals, and manners, of the people, so far 
as it has extended. ^ 

We maybe sure that Tim Twilight was a different kind of 
person. Mr. Thomas certainly believed in him, and that 
too in spite of the misfortunes of " my neighbour Spinage," 
who, according to the Farmer's Calendar for October, 1830, 
" last season, purchased of an honest pedlar a pound of 
wooden cucumber seeds ! " 

1 Travels in New-England and New-York, New Haven, 182 1, I, 306. 



FIRE! 

IN 1 799 the Almanac contained a series of observations 
on the prevention and extinction of Fire. They are 
thought to be the work of Benjamin Dearborn (1745- 
1838), and are particularly amusing from their anecdotical 
character. 

[ The following is inserted at the request of the Massachusetts 
Charitable Fire Society. '\ 

DIRECTIONS for preventing Calamities by FIRE. 

1. "■V'EEP your chimnies and stove-pipes clean, by sweep- 
J\. ing them at least once every month. 

2. Never remove hot ashes in a wooden vessel of any kind, and 
look well to your ash-hole. 

3. After sweeping a hearth, see that the brush does not retain 
any particles of fire, before you hang it up in its usual place. 

4. Oblige all your servants to go to bed before you, every night, 
and inspect all your fire-places, before you retire to rest. — For 
fear of accidents, let a bucket of water be left in your kitchen every 
night. The writer of these directions once saved his house from 
being consumed by fire by this precaution. 

5. Do not permit a servant to carry a candle to his bed-room, 
if he sleeps in an unplastered garret. 

6. Cover up your fire carefully every night in ashes. Let the 
unburnt parts of the billets or chunks of wood, be placed next 
the hearth, but not set upright in the corners, by which means no 
sparks will be emitted from the wood. Pour a little water upon 
the burning ends of the wood which are not completely covered 
by the ashes. Place before the fire a fender made of sheet iron. 




z 


w 


W 


<* 


u 


fi 


K 


o 




,M 


fc 


u< 



FIRE ! 147 

This contrivance was well known in England many years ago, by 
the name of Coverfeu. It has lately received (from a top being 
added to it) the name of Hood. 

7. Remove papers and linen from near the fire to a remote 
part of the room. 

8. Shut the doors of all the rooms in which you leave fire at 
night. By thus excluding the supply of fresh air, you will prevent 
a flame being kindled, should a coal or spark fall upon the floor, 
or upon any of the combustible matter in the room. The smoke 
which issues from this smothered fire, will find its way into every 
part of the house, and by waking the family, may save it from 
destruction. 

9. If sickness or any other cause should oblige you to leave a 
candle burning all night, place it in such a situation as to be out 
of the way of rats. A house was once destroyed by a rat running 
away with a lighted candle for the sake of the tallow, and convey- 
ing it into a hole filled with rags, and inflammable matter. 

10. Never read in bed by candle light, especially if your bed 
be surrounded by curtains. 

11. Strictly forbid the use of segars in your family at all times, 
but especially after night. May not the greater frequency of fires 
in the United States than in former years, be ascribed in part to 
the more general use of segars by careless servants and children ? 
— There is a good reason to believe a house was lately set on fire 
by a half consumed segar, which a woman suddenly threw away 
to prevent being detected in the unhealthy and offensive practice 
of smoaking. 

In case of fire attend to the followitig directions, to prevent or 
restrain its terrible consequences. 

I. Do not open the room or closet door where you suspect 
the fire to be, until you have secured your family, and your most 
valuable effects, nor until you have collected a quantity of water 
to throw on the fire, the moment a fresh supply of air excites it 
to a flame. Where water cannot conveniently be had, try to 
smother the fire by throwing two or three blankets over it. A 



148 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

British sea captain once saved a king's ship by throwing himself 
with a spread blanket in his arms, upon a fire which had broke 
out near the powder room. He was pensioned for hfe, for this 
wise and meritorious act. 

2. In case it be impossible to escape by a stair-case from a 
house on fire, shut the door of your bed-chamber, and wait until 
help can be brought to secure your escape from a window. 

3. If safety does not appear probable in this way, wrap your- 
selves up in a blanket, hold your breath, and rush through the 
flames. If water be at hand, first wet the blanket. 

4. To prevent fire descending from the roof, or ascending 
from the first story, form by means of blankets or carpets, a kind 
of dam on each of the intermediate stories, near their stair-case, 
that shall confine the water that is thrown upon the roof, or into 
the windows. It will effectually check the progress of the fire 
downwards or upwards in brick or stone houses. 

5. To prevent fire spreading to adjoining houses, cover them 
with wet blankets or carpets, or old sails. 

6. To extinguish fire in a chimney, shut the door and windows 
of the room. Throwing a quart or more of common salt into the 
fire. Hold, or nail a wet blanket before the fire-place. If these 
means fail, throw a wet blanket down the chimney from the roof 
of the house. 

There is a method used in some countries of glazing chimnies 
when they are built, by burning comtnon salt in them, which renders 
them so smooth that no soot can adhere to them. Chinuiies so con- 
structed can never take fii-e. 

Ladders are commonly used as the means of conveying persons 
from the windows of houses on fire. Would not a long and stiff 
pole, with a rope fixed on its upper end, be more portable, and 
convenient for this purpose? 

The famous Mr. John Wesley when a child, was taken out of a 
window in his father's house whilst in flames, by one man stand- 
ing upon the shoulders of another. This practice may be 
used to rescue persons from the first story of a house on fire. 



FIRE ! 149 

when other means cannot be had with sufficient convenience or 
expedition. 

The Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, which circu- 
lated the Directions just given, was organized in 1792, in- 
corporated in 1794, and still exists. Its object was to 
relieve sufferers by fire, and to promote discussion and 
invention of the means by which fires may be prevented 
or extinguished. For a good many years it held anni- 
versary exercises, consisting of an oration and an ode, but 
these were discontinued in 1818. Several of the odes were 
written by Robert Treat Paine, Jr., who changed his name 
from Thomas Paine on account of his dislike for the author 
of the Age of Reason. The celebrated patriotic songs, 
"Rise, Columbia" and "Adams and Liberty," were origi- 
nally written by Mr. Paine for the anniversary celebration 
of the Fire Society. The latter was set to the tune called 
" To Anacreon in Heaven," but now best known as " The 
Star Spangled Banner." A single stanza will recall this 
almost forgotten ode to the memory of some readers. 

Ye Sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought, 

For those rights, which unstain'd from your sires had descended, 
May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, 
And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended ! 
Mid the reign of mild peace, 
May your nation increase, 
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece. 
And )io Soti ^COLUMBIA shall e'er be a slave, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls a wave^- 

Benjamin Dearborn, the probable author of the Directions, 
was an early member of the society, and served on the 
Committee on Machines almost continuously from 1794 
to 1 8 18.2 

1 H. H. Sprague, An Old Boston Institution. A Brief History of the 
Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society. Boston, 1893, pp. 17, 18, 56, 57, 95. 

2 Sprague, p. 33. 



150 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

It should be remembered that the danger of fire, ahvays 
sufficiently terrible, was peculiarly distressing at this time, 
because of the prevalence of frame buildings, and also be- 
cause of the lack of insurance companies. An attempt was 
made to found a fire insurance business in Boston, in 1728, 
but it was unsuccessful. There is no evidence that any 
building in Boston was insured against fire before 1795, 
when the Massachusetts Fire Insurance Company, after- 
wards the Massachusetts Fire and Marine Insurance Com- 
pany, was incorporated. In 1798 the Massachusetts Mutual 
Fire Insurance Company was formed. Rates, however, 
in the shape of premiums and deposits, were so high that 
insurance was far from popular. We learn that the Mutual 
Company issued " seven-year policies at fifty-five cents per 
hundred on single wooden buildings, and seventy cents 
per hundred on wooden buildings in blocks, while thirty- 
five and forty-five cents per hundred were charged respec- 
tively on single and double buildings of brick and stone 
covered with slate or tile, while in addition deposits of 
several times the amount charged were required." ^ It 
was customary to raise money by subscription for the 
partial relief of sufferers. 

A graphic picture of a fire in Boston not far from the 
time when Mr. Dearborn's Directions were published in 
the Almanac, is given in a letter written December 27, 
1796, by William Priest, an English musician who was em- 
ployed in various theatres in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and 
Boston, from 1793 to 1797: — 

There is no calamity the bostonians so much, and justly dread, 
as fire. Almost every part of the town exhibits melancholy proofs 
of the devastation of that destructive element. This you will not 
wonder at, when I inform you that three fourths of the houses are 
built with 7uood, and covered with s/iing/es, thin peices of cedar, 

^ Spragiie, pp. 16-17. 



fire! 151 

nearly in the shape, and answering the end of tiles. We have 
no regular fire-men, or rather mercenaries, as every master of a 
family belongs to a fire-company : there are several in town, com- 
posed of every class of citizens, who have entered into a contract 
to turn out with two buckets at the first fire alarm, and assist to 
the utmost of their power in extinguishing the flames, without fee 
or reward. 

I awoke this morning about two o'clock by the cry of fire, and 
the jingling of all the church bells, which, with the rattling of the 
engines, call for water, and other et ccztera of a bostonian fire- 
alarm, form a concert truly horrible. 

As sleep was impossible under such circumstances, I immedi- 
ately rose, and found the town illuminated. When the alarm is 
given at night, the female part of the family immediately place 
candles in the windows. This is of great service in a town where 
there are few lamps. 

I found the fire had broken out in one of the narrow streets, 
and was spreading fast on all sides. I was much pleased with the 
regularity observed by these amateur fire-men. Each engine had 
a double row, extending to the nearest water ; one row passed 
the full, and the other the empty buckets. The citizens not em- 
ployed at the engines were pulling down the adjacent buildings, 
or endeavouring to save the furniture ; their behaviour was bold 
and intrepid. The wind blew fresh at N. W. ; and nothing but 
such uncommon exertions could possibly have saved the town, 
composed, as it is, of such combustible materials. You will natu- 
rally inquire, whether they have no other. Yes, brick and stone 
in great plenty ; but the cheapness of a frame, or wooden build- 
ing, is a great inducement for the continuance of this dangerous 
practice : but there is one still greater, viz. a strange idea, uni- 
versal in America, that wooden houses are more healthy, and less 
liable to generate or retain contagious infection than those of 
brick or stone. This notion has been ably controverted by one 
of their best writers^ but with little effect; and, like all other 
deep-rooted prejudices, will not easily be eradicated. ^ 

1 Travels in the United States of America, London, 1802, pp. 168-71. 



152 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

The Directions make special mention of fire-engines. 
There were in 1799 thirteen of these machines, new and 
old, in Boston, the thirteenth going into commission on 
July 24th of that year.^ They were, of course, hand- 
engines. Mr, Dearborn himself, being of an inventive 
turn of mind, was much interested in such things. In 
178 1 he communicated to the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences a model of what he called a pump-engine, 
together with a full description, which was published in the 
Memoirs of the Academy in 1785.^ A plate accompanies 
Mr. Dearborn's article and enables us to get a clear 
notion of his curious contrivance. It consisted of a long 
vertical tube, which could be attached to the top of an 
ordinary pump, and at the upper end of which there was a 
swinging conductor, managed by means of a couple of 
ropes. " I have," writes Mr. Dearborn, " raised a tube of 
30 feet on my pump, but the severity of the season pre- 
vents my compleating it ; having so far executed it only, 
as for one person to work at the brake; I can myself 
throw water on the top of a neighbouring building, the 
nearest part of which is 37 feet from the pump, and 
between 30 and 40 feet high." It was thought that this 
stationary machine might be of use in private families, 
something like a fire-extinguisher nowadays, but it does 
not seem to have been extensively adopted. In the next 
year Mr. Dearborn applied the same principles of construc- 
tion to a portable engine, which is figured in the same 
volume. The advantages which he claimed for his inven- 
tion were cheapness, ease of manufacture, and economy 
of labor in operation. Apparently, however, it never got 
beyond the model stage. Mr. Dearborn also devised a 

1 A. W. Brayley, Complete History of the Boston Fire Department, 
Boston, 18S9, p. 105 ; cf. Belknap's letter, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, ist 
Series, IV, i88. 

2 I, 520. 



fire! 153 

" ladder and receiver " and a " leveller." The former was 
a primitive kind of fire-escape, consisting of a ladder 
" long enough to reach from the ground to the chamber 
windows " and of a sliding box attached to the ladder 
and operated by ropes. In the accompanying description 
he emphasizes " the expedition and security with which 
persons and articles may be transported to the ground 
from the chamber windows of a house on fire or in 
danger." The leveller was an implement for destroying 
buildings by tearing out the posts, sills, and beams. 
Models of both inventions were deposited with the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, but it does not appear that 
the contrivances were ever put to a practical use.^ 

One of the most surprising of the anecdotes in Mr. 
Dearborn's Directions is that in the ninth section: — "A 
house was once destroyed by a rat running away with a 
lighted candle for the sake of the tallow, and conveying it 
into a hole filled with rags, and inflammable matter." No 
one can fail to admire the address and agility of the rat 
and to wonder who was present to observe his feat. Mr. 
Joseph Willard refers with much pertinency to the peril 
of Judg6 Sewall's household, as set forth in his Diary for 
"Midweek," July 13, 1709, where a similar exploit is 
conjecturally ascribed to a mouse : — 

Midweek, July, 13. 1709. N. B. Last night, between 2 or 3 
hours after midnight, my wife complain'd of Smoak ; I presently 
went out of Bed, and saw and felt the Chamber very full of Smoak 
to my great Consternation. I slipt on my Cloaths except Stock- 
ings, and run out of one Room into another above, and below 
Stairs, and still found all well but my own Bed-chamber. I went 
into Garret and rouz'd up David, who fetch'd me a Candle. My 
wife fear'd the Brick side was a-fire, and the children endangered. 
She fled thither, and call'd all up there. While she was doing 
this, I felt the partition of ray Bed-chamber Closet warm ; which 
1 Sprague, pp. 45-46. 



154 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

made me with fear to unlock it, and going in I found the Deal- 
Box of Wafers all afire, burning livelily ; yet not blazing. I drew 
away the papers nearest to it, and call'd for a Bucket ol Water. 
By that time it came, I had much adoe to recover the Closet 
agen : But I did, and threw my Water on it, and so more, and 
quench'd it thorowly. Thus with great Indulgence GOD saved 
our House and Substance, and the Company's ^ Paper. This 
night, as I lay down in my Bed, I said to my Wife, that the 
Goodness of God appeared, in that we had a Chamber, a Bed, 
and Company. If my Wife had not waked me, we might have 
been consumed. And it seems admirable, that the opening the 
Closet-Door did not cause the Fire to burst forth into an Un- 
quenchable Flame. The Box was i8 inches over, Closet full of 
loose papers, boxes. Cases, some Powder. The Window-Curtain 
was of Stubborn Woolen and refus'd to burn though the Iron-Bars 
were hot with the fire. Had that burnt it would have fired the pine- 
shelves and files of Papers and Flask and Bandaliers of powder. 
The Pine-Floor on which the Box stood, was burnt deep, but being 
well plaister'd between the Joysts, it was not burnt through. The 
Closet under it had Hundreds of Reams of the Company's Paper 
in it. The plaistered Wall is mark'd by the Fire so as to resemble 
a Chimney back. Although I forbad mine to cry Fire; yet 
quickly after I had quench'd it ; the Chamber was full of Neigh- 
bours and Water. The smell of Fire pass'd on me very much ; 
which lasted some days. We imagine a Mouse might take our 
lighted Candle out of the Candle-stick on the hearth and dragg 
it under my closet-door behind the Box of Wafers. The good 
Lord sanctify this Threatening ; and his Parental Pity in improv- 
ing our selves for the Discovery of the Fire, and Quenching it. 
The Lord teach me what I know not ; and wherein I have done 
amiss help me to doe so no more ! ^ 

Mr. Dearborn shared the prejudice of his age against 
" segars." He enquires whether " the greater frequency 

1 Probably the Society for Propagating the Gospel. 

2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, sth Series, VI, 257-9. 



fire! 155 

of fires in the United States than in former years, may not 
be ascribed in part to the more general use of segars by 
careless servants and children?" and adds "There is good 
reason to believe a house was lately set on fire by a half- 
consumed segar, which a woman suddenly threw away to 
prevent being detected in the unhealthy and offensive 
practice of smoaking." It was no new thing for women to 
smoke. Mrs. Rowlandson's interview with King Philip, 
when he politely offered her a pipe, will be described in a 
later chapter, and we shall see that she declined his cour- 
tesy because she had overcome her former appetite for 
tobacco.^ But the cigar, being still something of a novelty, 
was regarded with peculiar disapproval by the more staid 
and conservative members of the community. At almost 
the very moment when Mr. Dearborn was penning his 
cautionary Directions, the General Court of Massachusetts 
was busy with an Act to Secure the Town of Boston from 
Damage by Fire (1798).^ This act forbade carrying fire 
through the streets, except in a covered vessel, as well as 
smoking, or having in one's possession " any lighted pipe 
or segar " in the streets or on the wharves. The penalty 
was fixed at two dollars, or, if the offense was committed 
in any ropewalk, at from five to one hundred dollars. 
These provisions were really but a modification of a much 
older law. In 1638 the General Court ordered " that no 
man shall take any Tobacco within twenty Poles of any 
House, or so near as may endanger the same." ^ To " fetch 
fire " from a neighbor's when one's own hearth was cold 
was a regular thing in the days of the troublesome flint 
and steel. It even passed into a proverb. One who made 
a hasty visit was said to be "in as great a hurry as if he 
had come to fetch fire." So in Chaucer, when Troilus 

^ See p. 370, below. 

2 Acts of 1798, chap. 27, sects. 6, 7. 

3 Laws, edition of 1672, p. 146. 



156 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

proposes to cut short his visit to Sarpedon, Pandarus asks 
reproachfully — 

" Be we comen hider 
To fecchen fyr and rennen horn ayeyn? " ^ 

The danger of this custom is plain enough and was soon 
felt by the inhabitants of Boston. In 1658 an order was 
passed to restrain it: — 

Whereas many careless persons carry fire from one house unto 
another in open fire pans or brands ends, by reason of which 
greatt damage may accrew to the towne ; It is therefore ordered 
that no person shall have liberty to carry fire from one house to 
another, without a safe vessell to secure itt from the wind, upon 
the poenalty of ten shillings to bee paid by every party so fetching, 
and halfe so much by those that permitt them so to take 
fire.2 

To smoke in the streets was simply a special variety of 
" carrying fire." The peril of the lighted cigar has long 
ceased to agitate the fathers of the Commonwealth. The 
prohibition remained in the statutes till 1880, when it was 
repealed,^ It had long been a dead letter, and the Fire 
Commissioners of Boston, who were consulted by the legis- 
lators before they decided to annul it, declared that they 
were quite willing to have it disappear. 

A racy portrait of a rural cigar-smoker, from the 
Farmer's Calendar for August, 1836, may serve as an 
epilogue. The compound noun with which it concludes 
is worthy of Aristophanes. 

See, what a puffing-pig Bob Linchpin has got to be ! It was 
about a year and a half ago, when he had not yet become 

1 Troilus, book v, stanza 70. 

2 Boston Town Records, in Second Report of Record Commissioners, 
2d ed., 1881, p. 147. 

3 See Acts of 1818, chap. 171, sect. 10, and, for the repeal, Acts of 1880, 
chap. 38. 



fire! 157 

acquainted with the ton of the city, that Robert went there to 
market, and to see a cousin or two. He carried down butter and 
eggs, and a few other articles of the produce of his father's farm. 
Poor soul ! He will rue the day that he ever fell among dandies. 
But so it was, for his cousins were altogether for being bursters; 
and Bob was initiated into a clan of these mutton-faced non- 
essentials. So, our friend's name was changed from clever 
Robert to flashy Bob ; and, among other things of fashionable 
consequence, he learned to wield a real Spanish. Whif ! see the 
columns, as they roll away and bring to view his bumps of self- 
esteem ! Poor Bobby, how changed from a right-down, plain, 
honest plough-jogger to a tippy-dazzlem-fogo-combustibus ! 



" DROWNED ! DROWNED ! " 

SOMETIME in the Spring of 1787, or '8S, a young gentleman 
at Georgetown, who could not swim, accompanied by one or 
more of his companions, went into the river to bathe ; he 
unfortunately stepped from a bank of sand, beyond his depth, and 
was drowned. Attempts were immediately made in various ways 
to obtain the body, by diving after it, searching with boat-hooks, 
poles, etc. and by a dragging seine ; but all of them proved inef- 
fectual. Similar exertions were made next day without success. 

A gentleman mentioned, that he had read of the bodies of 
drowned persons being discovered by means of quicksilver, 
placed in a quill, and attached to a loaf of warm bread. — This 
appeared so chimerical a project, that the bystanders ridiculed the 
idea. He observed that the experiment might easily be made, 
and could do no injury. A quill was prepared, filled with quick- 
silver, and inserted in a loaf of warm bread. 

Some persons then got into a boat, and placed the bread on the 
water so as to be carried with the current in a direction towards the 
body; when it had floated 10 or 15 yards, it became stationary, 
and in a short time the body ascended and floated on the top of 
the water, to the great astonishment of the multitude of specta- 
tors. The body had laid under water about 16 or 18 hours. 

The experiment above recorded deserves a trial on similar 
occasions, and might even be the means of restoring life, by dis- 
covering drowned bodies soon after they have disappeared. 

May not this singular phenomenon be accounted for in this 
simple manner? The bread is carried down by the current till it 
comes within the sphere of attraction between the body and the 
quicksilver : it is then brought by the same attraction over the 
body ; and the specific gravity of the body being but little greater 



drowned! drowned! 159 

than that of the water, by the attraction of the quicksilver, a sub- 
stance of very great specific gravity and proportionate attraction, 
the body rises to the surface of the water. 

The method of discovering the situation of a drowned 
man described in the article just quoted from the Almanac 
for 1796 seems to have been rather common in different 
countries, and, in one form or another, must be pretty old. 
In the Upper Palatinate the peasantry believe that if the 
person's name is written on a piece of bread, this will float 
to the place where the body lies and then remain station- 
ary. In Bohemia the name is omitted ; a consecrated 
candle is lighted and stuck into a hole in the bread, which, 
as in the Georgetown anecdote, must be fresh.^ Here, as in 
the example from the Palatinate, the process is manifestly 
of an occult character. In the one case, the success of the 
experiment depends on the mysterious efficacy of the con- 
secration. In the other, we may discern the widespread 
belief in the sympathetic and essential connection between 
the name and the person who bears it. This is a belief 
which underlies an almost countless number of supersti- 
tions. The berserk Klaufi, in an Icelandic saga, is de- 
prived of his demonic strength when, in the course of a 
fierce struggle, some one calls him by name : " Klaufi I 
Klaufi ! govern your rage ! " A werewolf is instantly re- 
stored to his proper human shape if his right name is 
mentioned in his hearing. The most powerful spirits are 
controllable by the magician who knows their names. The 
true name of Rome was said to be kept a secret, lest the 
enemy, learning it, might employ it in spells to call away 
the deities that protected the Eternal City. 

In the Almanac, it will be noted, an attempt is made to 
account for the phenomena on scientific principles, and 
perhaps, as in so many cases, there is in the customs de- 

1 Wuttke, Derdeutsche Volksaberglaube, 2ded., Berlin, 1869, § 371, p. 239. 



l60 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

scribed a union of observation and experience with magical 
principles of long standing. In the Gentleman's Maga- 
zine for April, 1767,^ not very long before the date of the 
Almanac, is recorded an occurrence which closely resembles 
that which is said to have taken place at Georgetown. It 
is worth quoting for its picturesqueness, even if it slightly 
exceeds the limits of probability : — 

An inquisition was taken at Newbery, Berks, on the body of a 
child near 2 years old, who fell into the river Kennet, and was 
drowned. The jury brought in their verdict Accidental Death. — 
The body was discovered by a very singular experiment, which 
was as follows : After diligent search had been made in the river 
for the child, to no purpose, a two-penny loaf, with a quantity of 
quicksilver put into it, was set floating from the place where the 
child, it was supposed, had fallen in, which steered its course 
down the river upwards of half a mile, before a great number of 
spectators, when the body happening to lay on the contrary side 
of the river, the loaf suddenly tacked about, and swam across the 
river, and gradually sunk near the child, when both the child and 
loaf were immediately brought up, with grablers ready for that 
purpose. 

The Indians of Canada, according to Sir James Alex- 
ander, use a chip of cedar, which, they suppose, " will stop 
and turn round over the exact spot" where the body lies. 
Sir James adds that he has known of an instance in which 
this was tried with complete success. Similarly a cricket 
bat, we are told, was thrown into the Thames near the 
place at which an Eton scholar had been seen to go down. 
" It floated to a spot where it turned round in an eddy, and 
from a deep hole underneath the body was quickly drawn." 
Here natural causes may well be appealed to, as is done by 
a sensible commentator in Notes and Queries: — "As there 

i XXXVII, 189. This and other instances may be found in Choice 
Notes from Notes and Queries, London, 1859, pp. 40-42. 



DROWNED ! DROWNED ! l6l 

are in all running streams deep pools formed by eddies, in 
which drowned bodies would be likely to be caught and 
retained, any light substance thrown into the current would 
consequently be drawn to that part of the surface over the 
centre of the eddy hole." ^ 

In the fine old ballad of Young Hunting^ the slain knight 
is cast into the deepest pot in Clyde Water, " with a green 
turf upon his breast, to hold that good lord down." The 
murderess is so confident in the efificacy of this weight 
upon his breast that she does not hesitate to express a fear 
that he is drowned in Clyde. The king sends for his 
" duckers," but they dive for the body in vain. At last a 
bonny bird that is flying above their heads speaks and 
discloses the secret: — 

"O he 's na drownd in Clyde Water, 
He is slain and put therein; 
The lady that lives in yon castil 
Slew him and put him in. 

" Leave aff your ducking on the day. 
And duck upon the night ; 
Whear ever that sakeless knight lys slain, 
The candels will shine bright." 

Thay left off their ducking o the day, 

And ducked upon the night, 
And where that sakeless knight lay slain, 

The candles shone full bright. 

The deepest pot intill it a' 

Thay got Young Hunting in ; 
A green turff upon his brest, 

To bold that good lord down. 

Here the candles may have been real candles inserted in 
loaves of bread and balanced with quicksilver, as already 

1 See Choice Notes, p. 43. 

2 Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 68 A, II, 145. 

11 



1 62 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

described, or the reference may be to the " corpse lights " 
which were believed to hover over the resting place of the 
unquiet dead. The ballad is not explicit. 

In 1795 the Almanac prints certain recommendations of 
the Massachusetts Humane Society to be followed in cases 
of apparent death from drowning: — 

As accidents of drowning frequently occur, and as it is very 
necessary that every family should be acquainted with the best 
method of proceeding in such cases, we have inserted the follow- 
ing 

DIRECTIONS 

For recovering persons apparently dead from drowning : 
as recommended by the Humane Society. 
Convey the person to the nearest convenient house, with his 
head raised ; strip and dry him as quick as possible ; clean the 
mouth and nostrils from froth and mud ; if it is a child, let him 
be placed between two persons naked, in a hot bed ; but if an 
adult, lay him on a hot blanket or bed, and in cold weather near 
afire — in warm weather, the air should be freely admitted into 
the room. The body is next to be gently rubbed with warm 
woollen cloths sprinkled with spirits, if at hand, otherwise dry ; a 
heated warming pan may be lightly moved over the back properly 
covered with a blanket ; and the body, if of a child, to be gently 
shook every few minutes. 

Then follow directions for the injection of tobacco smoke. 
There is no suggestion of the means employed nowadays 
for producing artificial respiration. 

Bathe the breast with hot rum, and persist in the use of these 
means for several hours. If no signs of life should then appear, 
let the body be kept warm for several hours longer, with hot 
bricks, or vessels of hot water applied to the palms of the hands, 
and soles of the feet, and this for a longer or shorter time, as 
the circumstances of the case may dictate. 



DROWNED ! DROWNED ! I63 

The Massachusetts Humane Society (like the Charitable 
Fire Society, whose recommendations were printed in the 
Almanac for 1799) ^ was one of the earliest charitable asso- 
ciations founded iii this part of the world. It was instituted 
in 1785, definitely organized in the next year, at the Bunch 
of Grapes Tavern in State Street, and incorporated in 1791. 
Its prime object was, and is, to save life, especially in cases 
of shipwreck or drowning. It erected huts or shelters at 
exposed places on the coast, gave rewards for rescues, and 
encouraged the invention of lifeboats and life-saving appa- 
ratus. In 1792 it began an agitation for the building of a 
lighthouse at some point on Cape Cod. It is hard to real- 
ize that this dangerous coast was so little protected in those 
days. From the outset, however, the Society was particu- 
larly interested in the means of restoring suspended anima- 
tion. We shall not be far wrong if we ascribe its foundation 
to the intense interest felt toward the close of the eight- 
eenth century in the obscure question of the boundary 
between life and death. This matter had been much can- 
vassed by the English Humane Society, which was founded 
in 1774, and a large number of cases had been collected 
and printed in which drowned persons had been brought 
to life when all traces of animation had vanished. A simi- 
lar association at Amsterdam had done good work in the 
same direction, and the proceedings of this body had been 
published in an English translation by Dr. Thomas Cogan 
(1773). The period immediately following the Revolution 
was fertile in projects. It was an era of intellectual activity 
in America, and the foundation of the Humane Society 
was a gratifying testimony to the readiness of New England 
to act on the impulse of a good idea. 

The Directions for resuscitation published in the Alma- 
nac for 1795 remained for some time the code of the So- 
ciety. They will be seen to differ in essential points from 

1 See pp. 146 ff., above. 



1 64 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

those now issued by the same organization. The use of 
tobacco smoke, strange as it seems to us, was regarded 
as of prime importance in the eighteenth century. It is 
dwelt on in the elaborate and highly interesing treatise on 
Drowning by Dr. Rowland Jackson (London, 1746),^ and 
the Amsterdam Society endorsed it heartily. The opinion 
in its favor was confirmed by the testimony of Dr. Bulfinch, 
in a letter addressed to the Massachusetts Society in 1792, 
to the effect that the American Indians used it to re- 
vive the drowned. Gradually, however, doubts arose as 
to its efficacy. In 1794 the medical committee of the So- 
ciety reported in its favor,^ but the very fact that the ques- 
tion had been referred to them indicates that scruples were 
making themselves felt. In 1805 tobacco smoke is dropped 
from the official recommendations, and two years later the 
Rev. William Emerson, in his address to the Society, de- 
nounces its employment as absurd and harmful. As early 
as 1 801, the necessity of inducing respiration by artificial 
means is recognized, and the directions to this end gradually 
became more elaborate, until they reached the form in 
which they are now familiar to everyone. In the same 
year, 1801, electricity is recommended. 

In 1805 the Almanac contains a report of an interesting 
case of resuscitation : — 

On restoring life to drowned people by means of warm 
ashes, as related by Mr. Solomon Rockwell, of Winchester, in a 
letter to the Editors of the Connecticut Courant. 

On Monday, the 9th day of July, 1804, a child of Mr. Caleb 
Munson, about fifteen months old, was taken out of the water ap- 
parently dead. From the place where it fell in it had floated 
down the stream about sixty feet in a swift current through a gate 
hole in the bottom of the mill trough, where the water falls six 

1 Physical Dissertation upon Drowning, pp. 44-47. 

2 Statement of Premiums, etc., 1829, pp. 48, 49. 



DROWNED ! DROWNED ! 16$ 

feet, and was found lodged in trash under water. It must have 
been in the water at least fifteen minutes, and it was the universal 
opinion of those present, that any attempt to restore it to life 
would be totally unavailing. I however determined to try the ex- 
periment of ashes ; accordingly I had its clothes taken off, spread 
some warm ashes taken from the fire-place, on flannel, and wrapped 
the child in the flannel, with the ashes next its skin ; ordered 
tobacco smoke to be injected into its body, and soon applied an 
addition of hot ashes directly to its bowels. After operating in 
this way about eight or ten minutes, together with blowing into 
its mouth, to the astonishment of all present, signs of life began 
to appear, and water in large quantities issued from his mouth. 
A potion of physic was given him in about two hours, and in about 
twenty-four hours he was able to walk, and is now entirely recov- 
ered : (four days after.) This successful experiment ought to 
operate as a caution to all who read the account not to abandon 
too hastily to their fate those who are so unfortunate as to be 
drowned ; but to make trial of the most approved means in cir- 
cumstances where there is the least possibility of success. 

The Physical Dissertation upon Drowning, by Dr. Row- 
land Jackson, deserves another word. Its collection of 
cases is vastly curious. Many are quite credible, but a 
number of them show that scientific investigation was still 
a desideratum in 1746. Dr. Jackson entertained extrava- 
gant notions of the length of time after which one might 
bring a drowned man to life. He tells of a fisherman 
who " by means of the ice " was kept under water for three 
days, and yet came to life. The man remembered that " a 
large Bladder had been form'd about his Head for his 
Preservation." This sounds like miracle. At all events 
the learned doctor does not try to account for the bladder. 
A similar formation protected the mouth of a Swedish 
gardener who had a like incredible adventure. Then there 
was a Swedish woman who lived to the age of seventy- four, 
though she had been "thrice drowned," — remaining three 



1 66 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

days under water on the first occasion. But these examples 
fade into insignificance before the strange case of Laurence 
Jones, whose funeral sermon the learned Burmann had 
listened to. According to the preacher, Jones, when six- 
teen years old, fell into the water and remained there for 
seven weeks, but recovered, and lived to be seventy. Even 
Dr. Jackson is a little doubtful of the accuracy of these 
figures, though why, he asks, should the learned Burmann 
misrepresent the words of the preacher, and why should 
the preacher tell a lie .? ^ 

It is easy to laugh at such stories, but after all their 
moral was a good one. The hasty inference that a man is 
dead because he has stopped breathing had cost the world 
a countless number of valuable lives, and needed drastic 
correction. A little hyperbole could do no harm. 

It may be added that for a long time the true cause of 
death by drowning was not understood. A venerable in- 
stance of this misapprehension occurs in the Anglo-Saxon 
epic of Beowulf. There the hero takes a long dive to the 
bottom of a haunted pool and enters a subaqueous hall, 
where he performs a very valorous exploit. As soon as he 
enters the hall, he is quite at his ease. The water, we are 
told, could not get in to injure him. Here is the gist of 
the whole matter. The theory was that a man was drowned 
because the water did him some harm rather than because 
he had nothing to breathe. Hence the efficacy of the 
"bladder" that formed before the mouth of the fisherman 
whom Dr. Jackson tells of. Even the eminent physicist 
Boyle was in doubt " whether an animal in an exhausted 
receiver dies for want of air, or because of the compression 
of the lungs" and in 1665 suggested an experiment to dis- 
cover the facts.2 And the Royal Society entertained the 
idea that "a kind of new air" made by the "operation of 

1 Jackson, pp. 7, 10, 11, 15-16. 

2 Birch, History of the Royal Society, II, 31. 



DROWNED ! DROWNED ! 167 

distilled vinegar upon the powder of oister-shells " might 
be "convenient for respiration" and afford a means of 
breathing under water.^ 

In 1794 the Massachusetts Magazine printed a letter, 
dated January, 1789, from a member of the Humane 
Society which suggested an extension of the method of 
resuscitation then practised to cases of apparent death by 
cold. The writer had found that apples might be pre- 
served by frost and had seen potatoes ploughed up in the 
spring " which had lain all winter in the ground, and were 
as sound and good, though frequently frozen, as those that 
were dug in the fall of the year." A snake too, he said, 
might " freeze so hard and stiff that it will break like a 
pipe-stem " and yet would come to life again. He like- 
wise appealed to the hibernation of swallows, which were 
believed to spend the winter at the bottom of ponds, either 
frozen or buried in the mud, and to emerge in the spring.^ 
Some days before, the writer had seen the bodies of " eight 
or ten stout men, frozen hard as rocks," and the melan- 
choly spectacle set him thinking. He ventured to suggest 
that it might not be amiss to disinter one of the bodies 
and endeavor to resuscitate it.'^ His proposals came to 
nothing, but they remain as a record of the speculative 
activity of men's minds at the end of the eighteenth 
century, — a disposition to which the world owes much. 

1 Birch, History of the Royal Society, II, 25, 26. 

2 See a paper on this phenomenon in the Memoirs of the American 
Academy, 1785, I, 494. 

3 Massachusetts Magazine for January, 1794, VI, 23-25. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 

ADMIRAL BARTHOLOMEW JAMES of the 
Royal Navy, during his excursion on the Kennebec 
River, in 1791, when he was a captain in the mer- 
chant service, had the good fortune to be present at a 
husking at Vassalborough, which he briefly but apprecia- 
tively describes in his entertaining journal : — " During our 
stay at this place we saw and partook of the ceremony of 
husking corn, a kind of ' harvest home ' in England, with 
the additional amusement of kissing the girls whenever 
they met with a red corn-cob, and to which is added 
dancing, singing, and moderate, drinking." ^ 

The admiral was fond of diversion and had a penchant 
for eccentric merrymaking. After he had retired from 
active service, and when he was enjoying his leisure as a 
country gentleman, he is said to have entertained the 
poor of the vicinity with a feast at which the chief dish 
was a sea-pie of Gargantuan proportions. Mr. Thomas, 
however, was a practical farmer. He was not averse to 
seasonable amusement, but he detested waste, and he was 
always suspicious of any combination of work and play. 
Here are some of the precepts in his Farmer's Calendar: — 

Harvest your Indian corn, unless you intend it for the 
squirrels. If you make a husking, keep an old man between 
every two boys, else your husking will turn out a losing. (Oc- 
tober, 1805.) 

1 Journal of Rear-Admiral Bartholomew James, Navy Records Society, 
1896, p. 193. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 69 

Come, Dolly, my dear, spur up ; prepare something good 
and cheering, for we will have a husking to-night. (November, 
1806.) 

In a husking there- is some fun and frolick, but on the whole, 
it hardly pays the way ; for they will not husk clean, since many 
go more for the sport than to do any real good. (October, 
1808.) 

Husking is now a business for us all. If you make what some 
call a Bee, it will be necessary to keep an eye on the boys, or you 
may have to husk over again the whole heap. (October, 181 6.) 

Some years later, in 1828, when the brief agricultural 
maxims of the Farmer's Calendar had expanded into char- 
acter sketches and little didactic essays, we find a more 
elaborate confession of faith on the subject of the New 
England harvest-home : — . ^ 

" Come, wife, let us make a husking," said Uncle Pettyworth. 
** No, no," replied the prudent woman, " you and the boys will 
be able to husk out our little heap without the trouble, the waste 
and expense of a husking frolick. The girls and I will lend a 
hand, and all together will make it but a short job." Now, had 
the foolish man took the advice of his provident wife, how much 
better would it have turned out for him? But the boys sat in, 
and the girls sat in, and his own inclinations sat in, and all be- 
setting him at once he was persuaded into the unnecessary 
measure, and a husking was determined upon. Then one of the 
boys was soon mounted upon the colt with a jug on each side, 
pacing off to 'Squire Hookem's store for four gallons of whiskey. 
The others were sent to give the invitations. The mother being 
obliged to yield, with her daughters went about preparing the 
supper. Great was the gathering at night round the little corn 
stack. Capt. Husky, old Busky, Tom Bluenose and about 
twenty good-for-nothing boys began the operations. Red ears 
and smutty, new rum and slack-jaw was the business of the 
evening. (October, 1828.) 



170 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

" Red ears and smutty" are fully treated in Joel Barlow's 
Hasty Pudding, which was written in the winter of 1792-93 
and contains the classic passage on husking parties : — 

The days grow short ; but though the falling sun 
To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, 
Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong, 
And yield new subjects to my various song. 
For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home, 
The invited neighbors to the husking come ; 
A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play. 
Unite their charms, to chase the hours away. 

Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, 
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall. 
Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux, 
Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, 
Assume their seats, the solid mass attack ; 
The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack ; 
The song; the laugh, alternate notes resound, 
And the sweet cider trips in silence round. 

The laws of husking every wight can tell — 
And sure no laws he ever keeps so well : 
For each red ear a general kiss he gains. 
With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains ; 
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast. 
Red as her lips, and taper as her waist. 
She walks the round, and culls one favored beau, 
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. 
Various the sport, as are the wits and brains 
Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; 
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away. 
And he that gets the last ear wins the day. 

This is one of the few passages of eighteenth-century 
American verse still remembered. Barlow's ambitious 
and unreadable epic, the Columbiad, is as dead as Black- 
more's Prince Arthur or Southey's Madoc ; but the mock- 
heroic Hasty Pudding, which he must have regarded as 
merely an elegant trifle, " the perfume and suppliance of 
a minute," is often quoted and even finds a reader now and 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS I/l 

then. The circumstances of the poem may account for its 
superiority to the author's more labored performances. 
Barlow had gone to Europe in 1788 as agent of the Scioto 
Company, which dealt speculatively in Western lands. 
After the failure of this enterprise he had remained in 
Europe, residing alternately in England and on the Conti- 
nent, and occupying himself with politics and literature. 
In the winter of 1792-93 he was at Chambery, immersed 
in French political business — he expected to be returned 
as deputy to the National Convention from the Depart- 
ment of Savoy. His wife was in London, and they were 
both rather homesick, though Barlow's head was too full of 
projects to allow him much leisure for reminiscence. One 
night he was surprised to find on the supper table at the 
inn a dish which he instantly recognized as the hasty 
pudding of his native Connecticut:^ — 

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy- 
Expands my heart to meet thee in Savoy ! 
Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam, 
Each clime my country, and each house my home. 
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end, 
I greet my long lost, unforgotten friend. 

The origin of the pleasant custom attaching to the red 
ear is lost in obscurity. A curious passage from Colonel 
James Smith's narrative is here offered for what it may be 
worth. There is no doubt of Smith's good faith. He was 
a captive among the Caughnawaga Indians from 1755 to 
1759, was adopted into their nation, and spoke three 
Indian languages, so that he had good opportunities to 
inform himself. He says : — " Before I was taken by the 
Indians, I had often heard that in the ceremony of marriage, 
the man gave the woman a deer's leg, and she gave him a 

1 See C. B. Todd, Life and Letters of Joel Barlow, N. Y., 1886, pp. 
97-99- 



1/2 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

red ear of corn, signifying that she was to keep him in 
bread, and he was to keep her in meat. I inquired of 
them concerning the truth of this, and they said they 
knew nothing of it, further than that they had heard it 
was the ancient custom among some nations." ^ 

Barlow's husking scene limits the drinks to sweet cider; 
but this is certainly poetic license. We may compare a 
humorous passage in the Diary of Dr. Nathaniel Ames of 
Dedham, October 14, 1767:^ — 

Made an husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe may last 
a Century & fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for 
whose Entertainm't I will inform him that now there is a Custom 
amongst us of making an Entertainment at husking of Indian 
Corn whereto all the neighboring Swains are invited and after the 
Corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or 
huzza's but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle 
they feign great Exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, 
when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty Meal about 10 at 
Night they go to their pastimes. 

Mr. Thomas's satire on the husking was written when 
the agitation for total abstinence was at its height. It was 
not merely the waste that troubled him, but the new rum 
and the four gallons of whiskey; for, as we shall see on 
other occasions, the Old Farmer was an earnest and con- 
sistent advocate of moderation in all things. The serious- 
minded in New England had long been dismayed at the 
hilarity that sometimes attended the harvest festival. In 
171 3 Cotton Mather remarks that " the Riots that have too 
often accustomed our Hitskiiigs, have carried in them, 
fearful Ingratitude and Provocation unto the Glorious 

1 Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. 
James Smith, in Loudon's Selection of Indian Narratives, Carlisle, iSoS, re- 
print of 1888, I, 240. 

^ The Ames Diary, Dedham Historical Register, H, 98, quoted by C. F. 
Adams, Three Episodes in Massachusetts History, II, 791. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 73 

God." He has heard that these riots " are abated," and 
exclaims " May the Joy of Harvest no longer be prostituted 
unto vicious purposes. Husbandmen and Householders : 
Let the Night of your Pleasure be turned into Fear ; a 
Jealous Fear, Least your Children take their Leave of 
God, and of Piety." ^ 

This outburst of Mather's is associated with a similar 
denunciation of " Christmas revels" and " Shroves-Tuesday 
vanities." Our forefathers are known to have been much 
averse to the celebration of Christmas. They regarded 
any kind of observance of that festival as papistical and 
idolatrous. So strong, indeed, was this feeling that many 
persons now living can remember when " the season 
wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated " passed, in the 
country, without any notice at all, whereas Thanksgiving 
was honored with both religious and social rites. 

On Christmas day, 162 1, Governor Bradford had an 
amusing encounter with some of his raw recruits, who had 
arrived on the ship Fortune the month before. There 
were thirty-five of these newcomers, and, to use the 
Governor's own words, " most of them were lusty yonge 
men, and many of them wild enough. . . The plantation 
was glad of this addition of strength, but could have 
wished that many of them had been of better condition, 
and all of them beter furnished with provisions ; but y'," 
he adds philosophically, " could not now be helpte." ^ 
Then comes the little clash of conscience: — 

One y day called Chrismas-day, y^ Gov"' caled them out to 
worke, (as was used,) but y*" most of this new-company excused 
themselves and said it went against their consciances to work on 
y* day. So y^ Gov"" tould them that if they made it mater of 
conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. 

1 Advice from the Watch Tower, Boston, 1713, p. t.k,. 

2 History of Plimouth Plantation, ed. 1S98, pp. 128-9. 



1/4 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK . 

So he led-away y'' rest and left them ; but when they came home 
at noone from their worke, he found them in y*" streete at play, 
openly ; some pitching y*" barr, & some at stoole-ball, and shuch 
like sports. So he went to them, and tooke away their imple- 
ments, and tould them that was against his conscience, that they 
should play & others worke. If they made y" keeping of it mater 
of devotion, let them kepe their houses, but ther should be no 
gameing or revelling in y" streets. Since which time nothing 
hath been atempted that way, at least openly.^ 

Mr. George William Curtis, who has written of the Pil- 
grim and Puritan Christmas with more toleration for the 
scruples of the Fathers than some of their descendants 
show nowadays, takes this bit of humor with undue seri- 
ousness. " It was against the Governor's conscience," he 
says, " that the ' lusty yonge men ' should follow their con- 
sciences, and the last sentence of the historian is as sig- 
nificant as Sebastiani's famous words, the modern echo 
of the Solititdinem faciunt of Tacitus — ' Order reigns 
in Warsaw.' " ^ This is pretty grim, and hardly fair to the 
excellent Bradford, who might assuredly be suffered to 
have his little joke, ^ — all the more when logic was so 
clearly on his side. The young men may have had con- 
scientious scruples against working, but they were under 
no religious obligation to play stool-ball ! 

In 1659 the keeping of " any such day as Christmas or 
the like, either by forbearing of labour, feasting, or any 
other way " was forbidden by the General Court of Massa- 
chusetts, under a penalty of five shillings for each offense. 
Towards the end of the century, when the population of 
the towns had become less homogeneous, and the number 
of Church of England men had greatly increased, the law 
grew difficult to enforce, and in 168 1 it was repealed.^ 

1 History of Plimouth Plantation, pp. 134-5. 

2 Harper's Magazine, for December, 1883. 

3 Mass. Colony Records, IV, i, 366 ; V, 322. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 75 

From this time Christmas began to reassert itself. The 
discomfort of Samuel Sewall as he contemplated this cor- 
ruption of manners is pictured in several passages in his 
Diary, which have been well summed up by Mr. Curtis: — 

Four years later Judge Sewall records, with satisfaction, that 
carts come to town on Christmas-day, and shops are open as 
usual. " Some, somehow, observe the day, but are vexed, I be- 
lieve, that the Body of the People profane it ; and, blessed be 
God! no Authority yet to compell them to keep it." The next 
year the shops and the carts give him great pleasure again, 
although Governor Andros does go to the Episcopal service with 
a redcoat on his right and a captain on his left. Eleven years 
later, in 1697, on the same day: "Joseph tells me that though 
most of the Boys went to the Church, yet he went not." In 1705 
and 1 706, to the judge's continued comfort, the carts still came 
and the shops were open. But in 17 14 Christmas fell on Satur- 
day, and because of its observance at the church the unbending 
judge goes to keep the Sabbath and sit down at the Lord's table 
with Mr. John Webb, that he may " put respect upon that af- 
fronted, despised Lord's day. For the Church of England had 
the Lord's supper yesterday, the last day of the week, but will 
not have it to-day, the day that the Lord has made." 

The passage in Cotton Mather to which reference has 
just been made gives a succinct statement of the grounds 
on which the Puritans objected to Christmas celebration 
in any form : — 

Christmas- Revels begin to be taken up, among some vainer 
Young People here and there in some of our Towns. 

R\emar]z\. It were to be desired. That Christians aboimding 
in Wisdom and Prudence, would Weigh in Equal Ballances, what 
is to be said, against their keeping any Stated Holidays, which 
our Glorious Lord himself has not instituted ; and what more is 
to be said, about assigning a Wrong-Day, to Commemorate a 
great Work of God, as thereon accomplished ; and most of all, 



1/6 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

how offensive it cannot but be unto the Holy Son of God, for 
Men to pretend his Honour in Committing Impieties, which the 
Conscience of every Man cannot but assure him, that they are 
Abominable Things, and hateful to the God, who has not pleasure 
in Wickedness.^ 

Such arguments did not go unchallenged. Some ten 
years later there was a little tempest at Marblehead. Mr. 
John Barnard, the local minister, and one of the ablest of 
his generation, in a lecture held on Christmas day, 1729, 
set forth the Puritan view with a good deal of vigor. The 
Church of England minister, Mr. George Pigot, was much 
disturbed at this discourse, and at its results. Some of 
Mr. Barnard's admirers, writes Mr. Pigot, " did frequently 
and loudly upbraid the Members of my Church, even in 
the very Streets, with such Tauntings as these : — What is 

become of your Christmas-Day now ; for Mr. B d has 

proved it to be Nothing else but an Heathenish Rioting ? — 
Will yotc never have done with your Popish Ceremonies, that 
you must have Four or Five Days running, to observe, what 
Mr. B d has made out to be no such Thing as You pre- 
tend ? — These and other unseemly Scoffings made the 
Generality of my Hearers uneasy, and brought divers and 
hourly Complaints to my Ears." All this was of course 
extremely unpleasant, and called for reprisals. 

At length, in January, 1730, Mr. Pigot replied in a ser- 
mon which was afterwards published, " at the desire of the 
church-wardens and vestry," under the formidable title 
" A Vindication of the Practice of the Antient Christian, 
as well as the Church of England, and other Reformed 
Churches, in the Observation of Christmas-day; in answer 
to the Uncharitable Reflections of Thomas de Laune, Mr. 
Whiston, and Mr. John Barnard of Marblehead." There 
is no occasion to enter into a discussion as to the merits 

1 Advice from the Watch Tower, pp. 34-35. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 77 

of this controversy. It has lost all interest except as an 
index to the temper of the times, which permitted Mr. 
Pigot to speak of Mr. Barnard's parishioners as " his 
credulous fishermen," and to include their pastor with 
others under the designation of " some sour spirits." It is 
almost a pity that Barnard did not allude to this passage 
at arms in his vastly entertaining Autobiography. He does, 
however, give us his opinion of his antagonist, in plain 
terms, as one who " had pretty good school learning, hav- 
ing been usher in his father's grammar school, but never 
educated at the Universities, nor knew anything of arts 
and sciences beyond the school ; and was a worthless man, 
with whom we had customary correspondence, but no 
intimacy." ^ We must at all events exonerate Mr. Barnard 
from any charge of bigoted opposition to the Church of 
England. He speaks with great respect of Mr. Bigot's 
successor, Mr. Malcolm, and he was one of the pall-bearers 
at the funeral o( /lis successor, Mr. Bours. Indeed, he was 
consulted by the Episcopalians as to the best way to fill 
Mr. Bours's place, and his advice was followed.^ And so 
wd may leave this queer little chapter of ecclesiastical 
history. 

Mather's words about Shrovetide are too curious to omit, 
though it cannot be supposed that the ceremonies that he 
mentions ever became at all prevalent in this part of the 
world : — 

It is to be hoped, The Shroves-Tuesday Vanities, of making 
Cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and Sacrificing of Cocks to the 
Pagan Idol Tuisco ; and other Superstitions Condemned in the 
Reformed Churches ; will find very few Abetters, in a Countrey 
declaring for our Degree of Reformation. 

Should such things become usual among us, the great God 

1 Barnard's Autobiography, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 3d Series, V, 234. 

2 The same, p. 235. 

12 



178 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

would soon say with Indignation, How art thou turned Unto the 
Degenerate Plant of a Strange Vine unto me ! ^ 

The last day before Lent is called Shrove Tuesday be- 
cause it was formerly the custom to go to confession — to 
shrive oneself — on that day. After shrift, all sorts of 
merriment began. Thus Shrovetide in England corre- 
sponded to the Italian carnival season. The Reformation 
of course put an end to the confessional, but the habit of 
festivity persisted. Mather is particularly vexed by the 
eating of cakes and the sacrifice of cocks. The first of 
these ceremonies he regards as a relic of Mariolatry; the 
second is, in his eyes, rank paganism. Cakes or dough- 
nuts were a regular English dish on Shrove Tuesday, 
which was therefore known also as Pancake Tuesday. The 
sacrifice to which Mather refers is the old sport of" throw- 
ing at the cock." The creature was tied to a stake and 
small cudgels were hurled at him by the contestants from 
a distance of about twenty-five yards. The winner got the 
bird.2 The brutality of the custom should have been 
enough to condemn it, but Mather thinks less of that than 
of its impiety. Singularly enough he imagines that it is a 
sacrifice to " the idol Tuisco." This is a strange piece of 
learned fancy. Tuisco, or Tuisto, is known to us from a 
famous passage in the Germania of Tacitus, where we are 
told that the Germans sing of him as a god born from the 
earth, and of Mannus, that is " man," as his son. There is 
no evidence that they ever made images of him. Indeed, 
Tacitus says expressly that they think it wrong to repre- 
sent any of the deities under human form. Of course there 
is no connection whatever between the unfortunate cocks 
that were battered on Shrove Tuesday and the ancient 
Germanic divinity. But Mather supposed, it would seem, 

1 Advice from the Watch Tower, p. 35. 

2 Brand, Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, I, 41 £f. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 79 

that Tuisco was identical with Tiw, the deity after whom 
Tuesday (the Anglo-Saxon Tiwes-dceg) was named. This 
specious though mistaken etymology, and the writer's 
horror at idolatrous sacrifices to a pagan Germanic god, 
show at least the scope of curious learning in old New 
England and the complexity of the problem that con- 
fronts the student who wishes to comprehend the Puritan 
spirit in all its manifestations. 

The same regard for efficiency in labor which Mr, 
Thomas evinces in his distrust of huskings — the persua- 
sion that work and play cannot be profitably combined, 
though amusement is well enough in its place — comes 
out in a little sermon on the text " Many hands make 
light work " in the Farmer's Calendar for June, 1821 : — 

"Many hands make light work." 

Now, if you have a heavy job to do, call all hands and despatch 
it ; but stop ! too many cooks always spoil the broth. There are 
some who cannot bear to work alone. If they have a yard of 
cabbages to hoe, they must call in a neighbour to change work. 
Now this is very pleasant, but it tends to lounging and idleness, 
and neglect of business ; for we cannot always have our neighbours 
at work with us. We shall reluct at working alone, and if we 
can get no one to come to us, we shall be away, leaving our corn, 
potatoes, peas and beans to take care of themselves. — " Bugs, 
bugs, bugs ! O, the bugs will eat up all the cucumbers ! " No, 
they will not, cousin Betty, if we attend to them. We must be up 
in the morning, aye in the morning, I say ; and not lie in bed 
until nigh twelve, like Capt. Dashup's girls, who are thrumming 
and drumming and humming all night long with ihe'ir penny-forts 
and jews-harps. — I say we must be up before the sun kisses the 
pine tops, and see to these bugs and pinch their necks for them. 

Several details are worthy of notice in this lively moral 
and economic lesson, apart from the instruction itself. 
The farmer's custom of " changing works " is humorously 



l8o THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

hit off; or, to speak more accurately, the abuses to which 
it may lead are pleasantly satirized. As for the custom 
itself, when properly regulated, it was a necessity; some 
kind of cooperation could not well be dispensed with in the 
days when small proprietors were many and professional 
hired laborers were scarce. Barn raisings, spinning bees, 
and huskings all come under the same category as " chang- 
ing works," and depend upon the same principle of barter, 
— for labor was, in simple communities, often a more 
practicable medium of exchange than money, because 
there was more of it. 

" So vast is the Territory of North- Am eric a" wrote Ben- 
jamin Franklin in 1751, " that it will require many Ages 
to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will 
never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a 
Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no 
Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade, but goes 
among those new Settlers, and sets up for himself, &c. 
Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it 
was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring 
People have been imported." ^ Yet wages were not high 
in those days according to the present standard of value. 
In 1800, Isaac Waldron of Newbury, Vermont, " hired out 
to Col. I" rye Bayley for one year for eighty dollars." Eight 
dollars a month, with board, was the regular pay of a farm 
laborer, or " hired man," as late as the third decade of the 
last century. But there were few temptations to spend 
money, and ready cash was scarce, so that, even with 
these wages, the farm hand might easily become a pro- 
prietor if he was economical.'-^ 

Mr, Thomas was of course not an opponent of the harm- 

^ Observations concerning tlie Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Coun- 
tries, &c., p. 4, appended to W. Clarke's Observations on the Late and 
Present Conduct of the French, Boston, r755. 

2 F. P. Wells, History of Newbury, Vermont, St. Johnsbury, 1902, p. 153. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS l8l 

less, necessary custom of " changing works." It was only 
when serious application to the task in hand degenerated 
into frolic that our agricultural mentor felt called upon to 
protest and admonish. 

Another point in the extract just given from the 
Almanac is the plague of destructive insects — bugs as 
they were, and still are, indiscriminately called in the 
country. The plan of breeding parasites to destroy these 
pestilent creatures had not yet been thought of, nor had 
the simpler method of applying Paris green made every 
potato patch a terror to people with weak nerves. In 
another place, however, will be found a suggestion that the 
bugs may be turned to good account as a substitute for 
Spanish flies in medicine.^ 

The husking inevitably suggests the spinning bee, de- 
scriptions of which are plenty as blackberries. Here is one 
which coincides almost exactly in date with the first appear- 
ance of the Farmer's Almanac. It relates to a spinning 
party which took place at Falmouth (now Portland), 
Maine, on May Day, 1788, and comes from the local news- 
paper. The tone and temper of the item suggest that it 
was written by the reverend gentleman at whose house the 
assembly was held. 

On the I St instant, assembled at the house of the Rev. Samuel 
Deane, of this town, more than one hundred of the fair sex, 
married and single ladies, most of whom were skilled in the 
important art of spinning. An emulous industry was never more 
apparent than in this beautiful assembly. The majority of fair 
hands gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many were 
occupied in preparing the materials, besides those who attended 
to the entertainment of the rest — provision for which was mostly 
presented by the guests themselves, or sent in by other generous 
promoters of the exhibition, as were also the materials for the 

^ See p. 186, below. 



1 82 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

work. Near the close of the day, Mrs. Deane was presented by 
the company with two hundred and thirty-six seven knotted 
skeins of excellent cotton and linen yarn, the work of the day, 
excepting about a dozen skeins which some of the company 
brought in ready spun. Some had spun six, and many not less 
than five skeins apiece. She takes this opportunity of returning 
thanks to each, which the hurry of the day rendered impracticable 
at the time. To conclude, and crown the day, a numerous band 
of the best singers attended in the evening, and performed an 
agreeable variety of excellent pieces in psalmody. 

The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies. . . . She 
layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.^ 

Mr. Thomas usually takes spinning for granted, and 
does not feel that his readers need to be instructed about 
so obvious a duty, but now and then there is a bit of 
advice on the subject, as in February, i8i i : — " You will 
see that your daughters do not want flax, &c. to keep 
them industrious. I fear the old fashion of spinning and 
weaving are going out of date. Remember to bring up 
your children in the way they should go, and then their 
good habits will accompany them through life." Most of 
his advice to women concerns the dairy, and shows an 
anxious care for neatness which seems prophetic of modern 
qualms. 

When the Old Farmer began his career as mentor 
of rural New England, it was an occasional practice for 
women to bear a hand in the outdoor work of the farm, 
especially in the haying season. This practice seemed 
objectionable to Mr. Thomas. He regarded it as one of 
those crudities of which a civilized community should 
be ashamed, and he inveighed against it with unusual 
warmth : — 

1 Cumberland Gazette, May 8, 17S8, as quoted by William Willis, Journals 
of Smith and Deane, Portland, 1849, P- 3^2, note. 



HUSKINGS AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS 1 83 

All things must give way to necessity ; yet what need is there 
for a womrn to leave her domestic concerns, go into the field, 
and like an Amazon wield the pitchfork and the rake? 'Tis 
abominable ! Is this the duty of a wife ? Is such the tenderness 
of a husband ? Remember she is the mistress of thy house ; treat 
her therefore with respect, that thy children may, also. Consider 
the tenderness of her sex, and the delicacy of her frame. (August, 
1809.) 



\ 



SMALL ECONOMIES 

FEW miscellaneous scraps are more amusing to run 
over in an idle hour than those receipts for utilizing 
the useless or making something out of nothing in 
which thrifty people have always delighted. The older 
numbers of the Farmer's Almanack are not deficient in 
lore of this sort, derived from various sources — the 
editor's experience, the gossiping pen of the " constant 
reader," or even the newspapers. A few of the choicest 
among them are here brought together, without any at- 
tempt at classification, and with little or no comment; 
since for the most part they speak for themselves. A 
number of them are manifestly of more or less value, but 
the present writer cannot attach his prohatum est to any, 
and therefore prefers to make no attempt at discriminating. 
Persons who are fond of potatoes and afraid of coffee, 
may get comfort ftom the following extract from the 
Almanac for 1815. It is a little essay on — 

POTATOE COFFEE. ~ From a Philadelphia Paper. 

Frugality in domestic expenses, is a virtue, which ought to be 
practised by the manager of every family ; but more particularly, 
at a time when commerce stagnates in our ports, the mechanick is 
thrown out of employment, and the necessaries of life at so high 
a price as to be obtained only with the greatest difficulty, and 
when the poor are precluded altogether from many of them. 
Every discovery therefore, that has a tendency to ameliorate the 
condition of the poor and the labourer, and add to their comfort, 
is of great value, and ought to obtain public sanction. 



SMALL ECONOMIES 185 

The article coffee, a few years back, was looked upon as un- 
necessary, but is now considered, from the great use made of it, 
as one of the necessaries of life. The price is now nearly double 
to what it was in the year 181 1, and continues to rise ; a substi- 
tute for coffee would, therefore, be a great object to society in 
general — many articles have been tried, but, not answering the 
purpose, have been relinquished. 

The potatoe is found to resemble coffee in taste, smell and 
colour, more than any substitute that has been tried ; few persons 
can distinguish one from the other ; besides which, it possesses 
other properties and circumstances which ought to recommend 
it to general use. It is one of our cheapest and most plentiful 
vegetables ; besides its cheapness, it may be obtained in all places 
and in any quantity, nor are we dependent on foreign commerce 
for it — This substitute for coffee sits light on the stomach, is 
nourishing and easy of digestion, and does not irritate the nerves 
of weak persons or cause watchfulness. 

The following is the mode of preparing. — Wash raw potatoes 
clean, cut them into small square pieces, of about the size of an 
hazle nut ; put them into a broad dish or pan, set them in a 
temperate stove, or in an oven after the bread is taken out, stir 
them frequently, to prevent them from sticking together, in order 
that they may dry regularly ; when they are perfectly dry, put them 
into a dry bag or box secure, and they will keep for any length 
of time. 

When they are to be used, they must be roasted or burnt in the 
same manner as coffee, and ground in a mill or reduced to powder 
in a mortar. Small potatoes are as good as large ones — the po- 
tatoes generally considered of the meaner kind are better than 
the mealy, and the skins and parings are best of all. It is hoped 
none will be so prejudiced against this recommendation as not 
to try it — a trial will confirm what may appear to some to be 
doubtful. 

A laudable attempt to convert tribulations into blessings 
appears in a communication from Mr. Thomas's own town, 
which found a place in the Almanac for 1807 : — 



1 86 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

To the EDITOR of the FARMER'S ALMANACK. 
IMPORTANT DISCOVERY. 

IT has been discovered that the Flies, which, in this section of 
the state, have been very plenty on potatoe-vines, are a substitute 
for the Ca?itharides, (or Spanish Flies,) and are much more active 
for blistering, when properly prepared. The fly seems to have a 
near approach to the beetle kind, has four legs, two pointers at 
the fore part of the head, a hard case over the wings like the 
Spanish flies, and is of the size of the fire bug, or fly, which ap- 
pears here in April, and is of a light slate colour. 

The best method to take them is to put a small quantity of 
vinegar in a tin milk-pan and brush them from the tops of the 
potatoes with the hand, which immediately kills them ; afterwards 
they must be dried in the sun. These animals are the only thing 
which draw a real blister, except the Spanish flies. The fly, if 
not destroyed, eats all the leaves, but the fibrous part, and greatly 
injures the root ; but by beating them off" once or twice, very little 
damage is sustained. 

If they should appear the ensuing year it is to be hoped that 
farmers will let their boys collect them. Two reasons will induce 
them to it. The first is to prevent the insect from destroying, in 
some measure, that very valuable and useful vegetable ; and in the 
next, to preserve a most useful article in medicine. For Can- 
tharides, our physicians have paid for several years past, from five 
to sixteen dollars per pound, as I have been informed. The po- 
tatoe fly, or bug, appears about the first of July, and continues 
until the middle of August — but generally becomes scarce in 
about four weeks after its appearance. It has been found on some 
other vines, particularly on cucumbers. 

Sterling, September i, 1806. 

It is safe to assume that the " potato-flies " mentioned 
by this sanguine correspondent were not quadrupeds, as 
he asserts, but had six legs, like other insects. We may 
even identify them, without much risk, with the " native 



SMALL ECONOMIES 1 8/ 

cantharides or blister bugs " discussed by Dr. T. W. Harris^ 
as quoted in the Almanac for 1834. These creatures, 
says the distinguished entomologist, " are successfully em- 
ployed in medicine instead of the Spanish flies, and were 
not the price of labor among us so high, might be pro- 
cured in sufficient quantity to supply the demand in the 
markets for this important medicinal agent." The letter 
from Sterling calls to mind the heroic counter-irritants of 
old-tim.e medical practice. An insect " much more active 
for blistering " than the Spanish fly must have been almost 
as satisfactory an instrument of torture as the East Indian 
inoxa described by Sir William Temple in his famous 
Essay upon the Cure of the Gout. Temple's informant was 
Monsieur Zulichem, a person who " never came into com- 
pany without saying something that was new." " He said 
it was a certain kind of moss that grew in the East Indies ; 
that their way was, whenever any body fell into a fit of the 
gout, to take a small quantity of it, and form it into a figure 
broad at bottom as a twopence, and pointed at top, to set 
the bottom exactly upon the place where the violence of 
the pain was fixed ; then with a small round perfumed 
match (made likewise in the Indies) to give fire to the top 
of the moss ; which burning down by degrees, came at 
length to the skin, and burnt it till the moss was consumed 
to ashes : that many times the first burning would remove 
the pain; if not, it was to be renewed a second, third, and 
fourth time, till it went away, and till the person found he 
could set his foot boldly to the ground and walk." ^ 

Here is a suggestion from 1801 which has proved to 
be of greater practical value than the receipt for Spanish 
flies: — 

HOGS' BRISTLES. 

EVERY species of information that will be advantageous either 
to the land or purse of the Farmer, we esteem it our duty to 
1 Works of Sir William Temple, 1757, III, 246-7. 



1 88 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

make public through the medium of the Farmer's Almanack. 
The Brush Manufactory is a late establishment in this part of the 
country, and is now carried on to a considerable extent, insomuch 
that large quantities of Bristles are imported from Europe. The 
price which they command we conceive must operate as an in- 
ducement to Farmers to be careful in saving their Bristles for 
market. The price of Hogs' Bristles, in many parts of the country, 
particularly in Boston and Medfield, is, we understand, 33 Cents, 
in cash, per pound. 

Bristles were sometimes regarded as the perquisites of 
the boys on the farm. The late Joseph T. Buckingham 
tells us that when he was fourteen years old he was allowed 
to sell to a brush-maker " the bristles that came from the 
swine as they were slaughtered." The first piece of silver 
that he ever possessed was a ninepence which he earned 
in this way. This was at Windham, Connecticut, in 1793.^ 

Weeds may be utilized, it seems, as well as " bugs." So, 
at least, says the Almanac for 1803 : — 

HORSES. 

MR. Cartwright has recently discovered, that the common 
groundsil, given plentifully to horses in the stable, will 
effectually cure greasy heels. It is always of importance to know 
the uses to which weeds may be applied. 

Soap and candles may go together, as they do in the 
Almanac for 18 18: — 

SOAP MADE OF SNOW. 
[From the Baltimore Federal Gazette] 
Soap made of snow in the following manner : — Take and cut 
into very small pieces one pound of good hard soap ; dissolve it 

1 Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Literary Life, Boston, 1S52, I, 
23-24. 



SMALL ECONOMIES 1 89 

with a slow fire ; when dissolved, put six or eight pounds of clean 
snow with it ; and after having boiled them together well for three 
hours, (or until it shews a lather on its surface,) add a wine glass 
of fine salt, and let it get cold ; when it will be found the finest 
soap, and to weigh as much as the snow did originally. 

AN IMPROVEMENT IN CANDLES. 

A plan for improving mould Candles and the quantity of their 
light is introduced by a writer in Spofford's American Magazine, 
for October, 181 5, viz : " Place a small straw of rye or oats in the 
centre of the wick, the ends of which may be stopped by being 
dipped in some bees wax or bayberry tallow, to prevent the cavity 
being filled with tallow in the mould or in dipping. Clipping the 
lower end opens the straw which is easily opened at the upper 
end by clipping off a little piece ; and on being hghted, the extra 
labour is not to be regretted." 

The following receipt is inserted at this point because it 
is too good to be lost, rather than because it comes strictly 
under the head of Small Economies. Yet "old shoes that 
are worn out" are so carefully specified that perhaps our 
classification is justified after all. It is found in the Almanac 
for 1804: — 

To prevent Crows pulling up Indian Corn. 

A farmer has communicated to the Editor a sure method to pre- 
vent Crows visiting corn fields, which he has practised for some 
years, and has ever been attended with the desired effect. As those 
mischievous birds have been very troublesome for some years past 
to many farmers, the following method is thought worthy the public 
attention. 

Take three or four old shoes, that are worn out, and fill the 
toes of them with sulphur, or the roll of brimstone broken small, 
make a fire with chips, or any small dry wood in or near the 
middle of your corn field on a flat rock, or on the bare mould, (a 



I90 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

rock being preferable) after planting your corn field, then lay the 
toes of the shoes on the fire and let them continue until the leather 
be burnt through, and the brimstone has taken fire ; then after 
sticking down poles of ten or twelve feet in length at each corner 
of your field, and inclining them towards the centre, make a string 
fast to the heal quarters of each shoe, and tie it fast to the top 
ends of the poles, letting the strings extend half way down, and 
when swinging, not to interfere with the poles ; and no crows will 
alight on your field that season. 

If anything will keep crows out of a cornfield, surely it 
must be this combination of brimstone, charred leather, 
and gibbeted shoes ! 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 



T 



HE Farmer's Calendar for May, 1818, affords an 
exhilarating item : — 



Planting time is close by and we begin to think of Indian dump- 
lings and puddings. Be not discouraged about raising corn. 
Uncle Jethro says that the good old Indian summers will return 
again. He is a great philosopher and astronomer, and ascribes 
our frosty seasons, which have been so troublesome of late, to the 
spots in the sun, which however he says, will soon be entirely 
obliterated. The tail of the comet is shortly to pass over the 
sun's disk, like a dusting brush, and they will be seen no more. 

Indian summer is as familiar a plirase as can well be 
imagined, and the thing itself is confidently expected by 
all of us when late autumn comes round. The history of 
the term, however, is obscure enough; but much light is 
thrown upon it by Mr. Albert Matthews in a learned paper 
published by the United States Weather Bureau.^ 

The earliest example of the term which Mr. Matthews 
has discovered occurs in Major Ebenezer Denny's Journal 
under the date of October 13, 1794: "Pleasant weather. 
The Indian summer here. Frosty nights."^ The diarist 
must surely have used a phrase that was perfectly familiar 
to him, and of course he adds no explanation, his entry 
being intended for his own eye alone. Four years later, 
in June, 1798, Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, describing the pre- 

1 The Term Indian wSummer, Monthly Weather Review for January and 
February, 1902. 

2 Military Journal, Memoirs Hist. Soc. of Penn., VII, 402. 



192 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

ceding winter at Hartford, Connecticut, remarks: "About 
the beginning of January the weather softened considerably, 
and continued mild for several days. Most people sup- 
posed the Indian summer was approaching (a week or fort- 
night of warm weather, which generally takes place about 
the middle of January), but, instead of this, there succeeded 
to these pleasant days a delightful fall of snow, about a foot 
in depth, which was bound down by an incrustation of hail, 
and prevented from blowing in heaps by the winds which 
followed,"^ In 1803 the French traveller Volney, who 
visited America between 1795 and 1798, mentioned the 
Indian summer as occurring towards November and 
equated it with the " St. Martin's summer" of the French.^ 
These are the only writers of the eighteenth century, so 
far as we know, who employ the term Indian summer at all. 
They are, however, quite independent of each other, and 
their testimony establishes one fact beyond peradventure : 
the phrase was common among the people in the last decade 
of that century. The presumption is that it had been in 
use a good while, and we are not surprised therefore to 
learn that in 1809 Dr. Shadrach Ricketson, of New York, 
wrote of the name as "long known in this country."'^ Five 
more examples have been discovered by Mr. Matthews 
before 1820, to which that from the Almanac for 181 8 may 
now be added as a sixth. From this time the term be- 
comes frequent. Its picturesqueness and agreeable asso- 
ciations commended it to writers of every grade and it was 
soon established in literature on both sides of the Atlantic. 
It lent itself readily to figurative applications. As early as 
1830 De Quincey wrote of the great Bentley : " An Indian 
summer crept stealthily over his closing days ; a summer 

1 Medical Repository, II, 282. 

2 Tableau du Climat et du Sol des fitats-Unis d'Amerique, Paris, 1803, 
I, 283. 

3 Medical Repository, Second Hexade, VI, 187. 




JOHANNIS HEVELII 

COMETOGRA PHIA.^ 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 193 

less gaudy than the mighty summer of the solstice, but 
sweet, golden, silent; happy, though sad; and to Bentley 
... it was never known that this sweet mimicry of sum- 
mer — a spiritualor fairy echo of a mighty music that has 
departed — is as frail and transitory as it is solemn, quiet, 
and lovely." ^ So thoroughly has the term become a part 
of the English language, that the Poet Laureate, in address- 
ing Queen Victoria on her birthday in 1899, could find no 
more appropriate designation for her gracious old age than 
"the Indian Summer of your days." Few Americanisms 
have had so triumphant a progress. 

The origin of the term Indian summer is a mystery. 
There is no evidence that it was employed in the early days 
of American colonization or that it was derived by the 
white man from the aborigines. Nobody has left it on 
record, as we have seen, before 1794. Nor are there any 
comments on the phenomenon itself in older writers on 
America. Yet there were several English names for this 
charming and elusive season, and some or all of them our 
forefathers must have brought to this country with them. 
" All-hallown summer," i. e. the summer of All Hallows or 
All Saints, is one. It is jestingly applied to Falstaff by 
Prince Hal in the First Part of King Henry IV: — " Fare- 
well, thou latter spring ! farewell, All-hallown summer ! " 
(act i, scene 2.) Both epithets characterize Falstaff as an 
old youth. Another English name, adapted from the 
French, is " St. Martin's summer," which occurs in the 
First Part of Henry VI (act i, scene 2) : — 

This night the siege assuredly I '11 raise : 
Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days, 
Since I have entered into these wars. 

All Hallows is November i and St. Martin's day is 
November 14, so that these designations agree well enough 
with the current expectation in America, where we look for 

1 Works, Edinburgh, 1862-63, VI, 180. 
13 



194 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

our Indian summer in the late fall and feel defrauded if we 
do not get it. " St. Luke's Summer" is also heard in Eng- 
land, but its antiquity is not certain. St. Luke's Day falls 
on October i8th. Whatever designations for this season 
the colonists may have brought with them died out and 
left no trace, and "Indian summer" has been substituted 
for them, not only in America, but, as we have seen, in 
England as well, where, however, some of the other names 
have survived in the dialects. 

Naturally enough there is, and always has been, con- 
siderable latitude in the date of Indian summer. Thoreau^ 
in his Autumn, notes Indian summer weather, from 185 1 
to i860, on September 27th, October 7th, 13th, 14th, 31st, 
November ist, 7th, 8th, 17th, 23d, 25th, December 7th, 
lOth, and 13th, and there are other examples of similar 
laxity. But that does not really make against the prevail- 
ing tendency, which is strongly in favor of late autumn, 
and this appears to be the time of the German " Old 
women's summer" (^Altweibersonimer) or "After-summer" 
(JSlacJisorjtmer) as well. 

It is rather idle to speculate as to the original significance 
of Indian in the phrase we are considering, since we are 
ignorant of the history of the expression before 1794. 
Many guesses have been made. Charles Brockden Brown, 
the first American novelist, thought that the season owed 
its name " to its being predicted by the natives to the first 
emigrants, who took the early frosts as the signal for 
winter."^. This is altogether improbable. The first emi- 
grants needed no aboriginal prophet to make them look 
for fine warm days in late autumn, for they had noticed 
such weather at home, and must have had a name for it; 
or else they were different from other Englishmen of their 
time, and, indeed, from Europeans in general. The most 

1 Note in his translation of Volney, View of the Soil and Climate of the 
United States, Philadelphia, 1804, p. 210. 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 1 95 

popular explanation derives the term from the Indian cus- 
tom of burning over the woods in November to destroy 
the underbrush, — a practice which was noted by the early 
settlers, who found the forests so open that they could ride 
through them without difficulty. This explanation also is 
of no value. Though haziness is often regarded as charac- 
teristic of the weather in the Indian summer, and though 
this peculiar quality of the air was sometimes said to be 
due to the fires kindled by the natives, — it is a long saltus 
to the conclusion that the name Indian summer has to do 
with the practice in question, nor are the logical steps easy 
to reconstruct. Far more reasonable is the conjecture that 
the name alludes to the proverbial deceitfulness and treach- 
ery of the natives. Increase Mather, in speaking of John 
Sassamon's report of King Philip's intended hostilities, re- 
marks that "his Information (because it had an Indian 
Original, and one can hardly believe them when they speak 
Truth) was not at first much regarded." ^ Or possibly we 
should think rather of their equally proverbial instability. 
Nothing is more fickle than the weather in Indian sum- 
mer; though this is a quality that might be predicated of 
our weather in general, for, as Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote 
in 1789, of the climate of Pennsylvania, "perhaps there is 
but one steady trait in [its] character . . . and that is, it is 
uniformly variable." ^ " Indian giving," we may remember, 
is making a present and taking it back again, after the 
manner of children when they repent of an impulse of 
generosity. Or, finally, if it is permissible to add another 
guess to the futilities of one's predecessors, it is conceivable 
that Indian summer was at first equivalent to '^fool's sum- 
mer." If so, we seem to have a parallel to the " Old 
Women's Summer " of the Germans and it may be also to 
the " Go-summer " of the Scots, if this is a corruption of 

1 Relation of the Troubles, etc., Boston, 1677, p. 74 ; ed. Drake, Early 
History of New England, 1864, p. 234. 

2 American Museum, 1790, VII, 334. 



196 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

" Goose-summer," as scholars suppose. To call the Indians 
fools may at first appear inconsistent with what our ances- 
tors observed of their cunning and their strategic powers ; 
but there is no real difficulty. Nothing impressed the logi- 
cal and hard-headed settlers more than the folly of the red 
men in certain matters — particularly in their religious 
beliefs. " Poor captivated men," " bondslaves to sin and 
Satan," "miserable heathen," "miserable salvages," " poor, 
naked, ignorant Indians," " forlorn and wretched heathen," 
" stupid and senseless," " these doleful creatures," " the 
ruins of mankind"^ — such are some of the epithets ap- 
plied to the Indians, — now in scorn, now in pity, — by 
New England writers of the seventeenth century ; and there 
are anecdotes enough in illustration of the simplicity of the 
aborigines. " They are treacherous, suspicious and jealous," 
writes Hugh Jones, " difficult to be persuaded or imposed 
upon, and very sharp, hard in Dealing, and ingenious in 
their Way, and in Things that they naturally know, or 
have been taught; though at first they are very obstinate, 
and unwilling to apprehend or learn Novelties, and seem 
stupid and silly to Strangers."^ "Fool's summer," though 
not pretty, would be appropriate enough, and would range 
well with " fool's gold " for iron pyrites, " fool's parsley " 
for the poisonous lesser hemlock, and ig7iis fatuus or 
" fool's fire " for the will-o'-the-wisp. 

In Henry VI, it will be remembered, "halcyon days" 
is used as a synonym for "St. Martin's summer" in a 
figurative sense. The Greek myth told how Alcyone, when 
she saw the body of her shipwrecked husband Ceyx, threw 
herself into the sea, and how both were changed into 
kingfishers by the compassionate gods. For fourteen 
days (or, as Ovid says, for seven) in the winter season the 

1 Eliot Tracts, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 3rd Series, IV, 202, 266; Mather, 
Magnalia, ed. 1853, I, 556, 558, 561. 

2 The Present State of Virginia, London, 1724, Sabin's reprint, pp. 11, 12. 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET I97 

mother bird sits brooding on the nest, which floats on the 
waves. During all this time the sea is calm and sailors 
may voyage in safety.^ This, then, is the Indian summer 
of the Greeks. 

It would not be fair either to the Indians or to the 
reader to bring these observations to a close without 
mentioning the myth of the god Nanibozhu as narrated 
by the Rev. Peter Jones in 1861 in his History of the 
Ojebway Indians. " This Nanahbozhoo," writes Mr. Jones, 
" now sits at the North Pole, overlooking all the transac- 
tions and affairs of the people he has placed on the earth. 
The Northern tribes say that Nanahbozhoo always sleeps 
during the winter; but, previous to his falling asleep, fills 
his great pipe, and smokes for several days, and that it is 
the smoke arising from the mouth and pipe of Nanahbozhoo 
which produces what is called 'Indian summer.' "'^ 

The story of Nanibozhu is at least three centuries old, 
but unfortunately no allusion to his smoking has been 
found earlier than 1852, when the Rev. Peter Jacobs 
(Pahtahsega), a native Indian, writing of the region on the 
border of Lake Superior, told of a remarkable stone which 
was held in much veneration by the savages. " The stone 
looks as if some man had sat on the rock and made an 
impression on it, as one would on the snow in winter. 
This was not carved by any Indian, but it is very natural. 
The impression is very large, and is about six times as 
large as an impression made in the snow by a man. The 
Indians say that Nanahboshoo, a god, sat here long ago, 
and smoked, and that he left it for the west. Every time 
the Indians pass here, they leave tobacco at the stone, that 
Nanahboshoo might smoke in his kingdom in the west." ^ 

There is no evidence that Mr. Jones, himself an Indian, 

1 Ovid, Metamorphoses, xi, 745 ff. 

2 History of the Ojebway Indians, London, 1861, p. 35. 
• Journal, 2d ed., Boston, 1853, p. 16. 



198 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

copied from Mr. Jacobs, but there is much ground for the 
suspicion that the former's mention of Indian summer was 
a modern addition to the myth. The subject of this myth, 
however, is too complicated to admit of a dogmatic or 
summary decision, and so we may leave it wrapped in 
the haze of Nanibozhu's gigantic pipe. 

Uncle Jethro's prediction of a return of the good old- 
fashioned Indian summers is intended especially to en- 
courage the farmer to hope for a better crop of corn. In 
this connection we may note the words of the Rev. Manasseh 
Cutler, whose meteorological observations at Ipswich for 
1781-83, were printed in the first volume of the Memoirs 
of the American Academy (1785). Under September, 
1781, Mr. Cutler remarks: "Fine weather for ripening 
Indian corn, and making salt hay, of which there are good 
crops" ; and under November he adds: " Indian corn well 
ripened, and a good crop." The Farmer's Calendar for 
the beginning of October, 1799, remarks: " Indian harvest 
will now call your attention, which had better have it before 
the ears get down, and heavy rains come on." This term, 
" Indian harvest," occurs as early as 164.2} It means the 
*' harvesting of Indian corn," and is opposed to " English 
harvest," which signifies the " harvesting of English grain," 
or wheat. There may be some connection between the 
phrases "Indian summer" and "Indian harvest," for, as 
Uncle Jethro suggests, a good Indian summer is conducive 
to a good crop of Indian corn; but it is difficult to see 
how either phrase can actually be derived from the other. 

Uncle Jethro's attitude of mind toward the sun spots 
and the comet is noteworthy. The spots in the sun have 
made the autumns cold so that there have been no Indian 
summers ; but the comet is to set everything right again, 
for it will sweep away the spots with a whisk of its tail. 
This is an unaccustomed r61e for a comet ; for such " blaz- 
1 Albert Matthews, The Nation, March 8, 1900, LXX, 183-4. 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 1 99 

ing Stars," as they used to be called, were never held to be 
beneficent in their effects. But Uncle Jethro is an original, 
and his portrait is of course meant as a caricature of those 
belated souls who still believed, in 18 18, that comets ruled 
the weather or were otherwise portentous. 

The wise men of New England had not always been 
so skeptical about blazing stars. In 1680 Increase Mather 
was inspired by the comet of that year to preach a terrify- 
ing sermon, which was printed under the title of Heaven's 
Alarm to the World. . . . wherein is shewed, that Fearful 
Sights and Signs in Heaven, are the Presages of Great 
Calamities at hand. Another, but less impressive, comet 
was visible at Boston two years later, and in 1683 Mather 
put forth his Discourse of Comets, in which he went into 
the whole subject with the learning and the superstition of 
his age. He writes : — 

There are who think, that inasmuch as Comets may be sup- 
posed to proceed from natural causes, there is no speakitig voice 
of Heaven in them, beyond what is to be said of all other works 
of God. But certain it is, that many things which may happen 
according to the course of nature, are portentous signs of divine 
anger, and prognosticks of great evils hastening upon the world. 
. . . Thunder, Lightning, Hail, and Rain, are from natural causes, 
yet are they sometimes signs of God's holy displeasure. . . . 
Earthquakes are from natural causes, yet there is many times a 
very speaking voice of God in them.i 

Accordingly Mather undertakes to write a history of 
comets from the beginning of the world to the year 1683, 
appending in each case an account of the direful effects 
that followed the prodigy. As to the comet of 1682, he 
expresses himself with becoming caution. Yet at the same 
time he displays a high degree of assurance when it comes 

1 KOMHTOrPA*IA. Or a Discourse concerning Comets, Boston, 1683, 
pp. 18-19. 



200 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

to interpreting mysterious passages in the Scriptures. He 
takes to task an anonymous astrologer in London who 
has made certain very definite predictions, — a " prophe- 
taster," he calls him, who ventures to foretell the conver- 
sion of the Turks and the destruction of Rome by that 
people. Neither of these events, he declares, can possibly 
happen, for both are contrary to passages in Numbers, 
Daniel, and Revelation. He is, of course, convinced that 
the pope is Antichrist, and has no doubt that Rome is to 
be destroyed " by some of those horns which have given 
their power " to him, " which the Turks never did. Rev. 
17, 16." It is likely, however, that the comet portends 
various atmospheric disturbances — "a cold and tedious 
Winter, much Snow, and consequently great Floods ; 
Malignant and Epidemical Diseases ; in especial the 
Plague." ^ 

Seventy-five years later Professor John Winthrop, who, 
as we shall presently see, received the first degree of 
LL. D. from Harvard College,^ published his Lectures 
on Comets.^ One might spend an hour with less profit 
than in comparing the philosophic calm of Winthrop with 
the frenzied eloquence of the former age. Yet the clergy 
had not altogether abandoned the older point of view. On 
another occasion Professor Winthrop found it necessary 
to join issue with a learned Boston divine in a matter of 
scientific and religious import. This was in 1755, when all 
New England was startled by an earthquake. There had 
been many earthquakes in this region, but this one was 
of unusual violence and caused much alarm. Professor 
Winthrop interrupted the regular course of his instruction 
in natural philosophy, and delivered a lecture in the College 
chapel, describing the earthquake and discussing the 

1 Discourse, pp. 129-30. 

2 See p. 235, below. 

3 Two Lectures on Comets, Boston, 1759. 



<^K4 4^^ ^^ 4^^ 4^^ ^^ -e^ 

^ KOMHTOTPA<;)IA. ^ 

^ O R A W 

^ Difcourfe Concerning ^ 

I COMETS; 1 

^hertintheNature of BLAZING ST ARS ^ 

// Enquired into: jfc 

^ With an Hiftorical Account of all the COMETS ^ 
^ which have appeared from the Beginning of the ^^ 
Z Worldunto this prefent Year, M.DC.LXXXIII. ^ 

^ The Place in the Heavens, where they were feen, ^ 
<& Their Motion, Forms, Duration-, and the Re- »j^ 
.|[^ markable Events which have followed 
7^ in the World, fo far as th'^ have been 

T by learned MenObfcrved. 



At al/o two SERMONS 
Occafi oned by the late Bidzing Stars. 

By INC SYBASE Afy^ri^^J^, Teacher of a Church 
at Bojfon in New-England. 



m 



^ Pfal. 1 1 1. 2.. The worlds of the lord are great, fought ^ 

»K out fff all themthat have pleafuretberein. 5|* 

^ Amos 9. 6, ^e buildetb bii /lories in the Heaven. *** 

^ 

BOSTON IN NEW-ENGLAND ^\ 

Printed by J. C7. for S.S. And fold by ^. i?r<?»«L J 

At the corner of the PrifonLane next the Towu- ^S| 

Houfe 16 8^. 1^ 

^ *^^> m^^ m^i m^ m^f m 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 201 

general subject, with particular reference to the cause of 
such disturbances. He follows a strictly scientific method, 
dwells on the undulatory character of the shock, and as- 
cribes the phenomena to the action of heat in the interior 
of the globe, insisting particularly on the connection between 
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. His lecture was pub- 
lished " by the general desire " of the College.^ 

At almost the same moment, the Rev. Thomas Prince, 
pastor of the South Church in Boston, was preparing a new 
edition of a sermon called Earthquakes the Works of 
God, and Tokens of His Just Displeasure, which he had 
published twenty-eight years before, just after the Earth- 
quake of 1727. In the reprint^ Mr. Prince inserted an 
" Appendix concerning the Operation of God in Earth- 
quakes by means of the Electrical Substance," and here 
he followed a line of argument which forced the Hollisian 
Professor to reply in a postscript to his published lec- 
ture. Mr. Prince, it appears, was opposed to the use of 
lightning rods, which had become very popular as the 
result of P'ranklin's experiments. He regarded all such 
attempts to escape the wrath of the Almighty as question- 
able devices, hardly to be distinguished, we may suppose, 
from Jonah's impious effort to evade the manifest will of 
God ; and the earthquake afforded him an opportunity 
to set forth his views. According to Mr. Prince's theory, 
earthquakes are caused by electric shocks in the earth and 
are strictly analagous to the phenomena of thunder and 
lightning. His warning against lightning rods is attached 
to a singular piece of reasoning : — 

The more Points of Iron are erected round the Earth, to draw 
the Electrical Substance out of the Air ; the more the Earth 
must needs be charged with it. And therefore it seems worthy 

1 A Lecture on Earthquakes, Boston, 1755. 

2 Boston, 1755. 



202 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

of Consideration, Whether any Part of the Earth being fuller of 
this terrible Substance, may not be more exposed to more shock- 
ing Earthquakes. In Boston are more erected than any where 
else in Ne%v England ; and Boston seems to be more dreadfully 
shaken. O ! there is no getting out of the mighty Hand of God ! 
If we think to avoid it in the Air, we cannot in the Earth : Yea 
it may grow more fatal. 

It was easy for Professor Winthrop to expose the fallacies 
in this remarkable pronunciamento, and we cannot too 
much admire the dignity and the consideration for Mr. 
Prince's position with which he replies to the somewhat 
hysterical words of the preacher. After effectually dis- 
posing of Mr. Prince's theories in general, he adverts, with 
a certain stately humor, to the alleged severity of the earth- 
quake in Boston and to the supposed maleficent influence 
of the " iron points " : — 

I know no reason to think [he writes] that * Boston was more 
dreadfully shaken ' than other towns. Some of the effects of the 
earthquake may have been more considerable, for their number, 
there than elsewhere ; but the reason of this is, not that * in 
Boston are more points of i?-on erected than any where else in 
New- England,^ but that there are more brick houses erected 
there. For the effect of a shock is more considerable upon brick- 
work than upon wood-work. The reasons of this are obvious ; 
and that it is so in fact, plainly appeared by our chimnies being 
every where more shattered than any thing else : Though this 
was in part owing to their being the highest parts of buildings. 

His protest against the admonitory application in which 
Mr. Prince indulged could hardly be improved : — 

I should think, though with the utmost deference to superior 
judgements, that the pathetic exclamation, which comes next, 
might well enough have been spared. " O ! there is no getting 
out of the mighty hand of GOD ! " For I cannot believe, that in 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 203 

the whole town of Boston, where so many iron points are erected, 
there is so much as one person, who is so weak, so ignorant, so 
foolish, or, to say all in one word, so atheistical, as ever to have 
entertained a single thought, that it is possible, by the help of a 
few yards of wire, to " get out of the mighty hand of GOD." ^ 

Winthrop was somewhat ahead of his time. Just twenty- 
five years later, in 1780, came the famous Dark Day of 
May 19th. It found the people at large, and even many 
of the leaders among them, quite ready to yield to super- 
stitious terror. And, indeed, the phenomenon was dis- 
quieting enough. Whittier's description, in his Abraham 
Davenport, is amply substantiated by contemporary 
records : — 

'T was on a May-day of the far old year 

Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell 

Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, 

Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, 

A horror of great darkness, like the night 

In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 

The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky 

Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim 

Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs 

The crater's sides from the red hell below. 

Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls 

Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars 

Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern wings 

Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died ; 

Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp 

To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter 

The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ 

Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked 

A loving guest at Bethany, but stern 

As Justice and inexorable Law. 

There were innumerable conjectures as to the cause of 
the darkness, — some ridiculous, others philosophical, — 

1 Lecture, p. 37. 



204 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

but no document preserved to us affords a better idea of 
the confusion of men's minds than the following passage 
from a letter of Dr. Jeremy Belknap in Dover, New Hamp- 
shire, to his friend Ebenezer Hazard of New York, June 
5, 1780: — 

Shall I now entertain you with the whims and apprehensions 
of mankind upon this unusual appearance ? It is not surprising 
that the vulgar should turn it all into prodigy and miracle ; but 
what would you think of men of sense, and of a liberal education, 
if I should tell you that I heard one of my very good brethren 
in this neighbourhood gravely assert in company (and I have 
been told he did the same in his pulpif) that it was the fulfilling 
of Joel's prophecy of a " pillar of smoke " ; and that another 
wondered at me for not placing this phenomenon in the same 
rank with Josephus's signs of the destruction of Jerusalem ? 
What would you think of one who supposed it to be the pouring 
out of the 7th vial into the air ; and of another that called his 
congregation together during the darkness, and prayed that the 
sun might shine again, as if he had forgot the promise to Noah 
that " day and night should not cease " ? What would you think 
of one who supposed the earth to be passing through the tail of a 
comet ; and of another who thought the nucleus of one had inter- 
fered between us and the sun, so as to make an eclipse? How 
many more extravagant conceptions have been formed by men, 
whose minds one would think had been enlarged by reason and 
philosophy, I know not. Doubtless you will hear enough on your 
return to make you stand amazed at the power which fear and 
superstition have over the minds of men. Should you collect any 
observations on your journey, I shall be greatly obliged by a 
communication of them. I want very much to know the exact 
limits of the obscuration and the degree of it in different places, 
for it was not everywhere alike. In some places the sun ap- 
peared in the afternoon, but here the whole afternoon was 
uniformly dark ; and the evening was as total darkness as can be 
conceived, with a strong smell of smoke, and between nine and 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 20$ 

ten it grew lighter, and afterwards continued until the moon 
appeared through the clouds.^ 

If we compare the mental attitude of Dr. Belknap with 
that of Mr, Prince twenty-five years before, remembering 
that both were leaders of opinion in Boston, we shall get 
a good idea of the progress of rational thought in the 
second half of the eighteenth century. When another 
Dark Day came, on November 2d, 1819, it caused com- 
paratively little distress of mind, and the Yellow Day of 
our own recollection, September 6th, 1881, excited won- 
der and curious speculation, but no terror, except among 
the ignorant. 

Mr. Thomas was always an opponent of superstition. 
Two noteworthy passages in the Almanac give humorous 
expression to his general sentiments. The first is in the 
Farmer's Calendar for March, 1827 : — 

Farmer Snug sits warm by his fire, 
And his ale and his nuts pass about. 
Old Betty and noisy Uriah 
Are steming the tempest without. 

Whew and whistle goes the wind and superstitious people 
seem to imagine that fairies and hobgoblins are continually upon 
the dance all about and about and about. " What a terrible 
flustration is here ! " cried Mrs. Flitterwinkle. " Why it seems 
as if the very heavens and earth were coming together ! They 
say our blue heifer has been blown clean across chickawicket 
pond ! Farmer Cleverly's cattle have all lost their tails, and just 
as old Mrs. Drizzle went to take up lier dinner, there came a 
most terrifying gust, and swoop it carried porridge pot, pork, 
pud'n and mother Drizzle all up chimney and nothing has 
been heard of them since ! Ah, I knew this would happen ; 
for the gpose bone burnt blue yesterday, and the kitten's tail 
pointed north all day! Hark, what's that ! Dear me how pale 
I feel ! I am afraid the moon is going to fall ! " 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 5th Series, II, 54-55. 



206 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

Away with such superstitious nonsense, and let us be cutting 
scions for grafting ; or watching our fields, or cutting wood, or 
making maple sugar, and other matters. 

Three years later, in March, 1830, the Farmer's Calendar 
returns to the charge : — 

Why do you conjure up a thousand frightful monsters to 
torment yourself, when there are enough of real evils? Some 
seem to think that there is a ghost in every gust of wind. Away 
with such vain illusions of the imagination. Strange it is that a 
courage, that never startles at real dangers, should shrink at even 
the thought of an empty chimera ! Signs and omens and prog- 
nostics continually fill the minds of some. "Ah, husband, I 
know our crops will be short next season," said a silly old woman, 
" for the brine has all leaked out of the pork barrel ! " She 
happened to get a first sight of the new moon over her left 
shoulder, and it made her sad and glum through the month. 
She once dreamed of a black cat, and this so bewitched the 
cream, that no butter could be made ! Farmer Bluejoint has 
nailed an Ass's shoe to his hogsty to keep the evil spirit from his 
herd of swine ; for, it is said that, old Splitfoot has always hated 
Asses since the affair of Balaam. The rats by thousands destroyed 
his grain. So, he got his daughter, Dolly, to write them a threaten- 
ing letter, which he placed in his corn crib. The consequence 
was that every varmetii of them immediately evacuated the 
place ! What power has superstition ! 

The year 1830 seems rather recent for the prevalence of 
such notions as the Old Farmer is here scoffing at; but 
we are all more superstitious than we imagine, and it has 
not been difficult for students of folk-lore to collect a great 
quantity of whimsicalities from New England people, even in 
very recent years. Most of them, to be sure, are no longer 
believed, but they were articles of faith a few generations 
ago. Most persistent, probably, are the various notions 
about good and bad luck. Every reader, if he gives his 



INDIAN SUMMER AND THE COMET 20/ 

mind to it, can think of a score that he has been brought 
up on, unless he is a very sophisticated person indeed. 
Horseshoes, and Friday, and walking under a ladder, and 
odd numbers, and picking up pins, will do for texts. 
Letters to rats are still written now and then, and have as 
much effects as they ever had. We have not altogether 
broken with the past! 



ARMY AND NAVY 

IN June, 1801, when Europe and America were both 
payers of tribute to the Barbary States, for exemp- 
tion from piratical attacks on their shipping, the 
Bey of Tunis met with a serious loss. A fire broke out in 
his palace and consumed fifty thousand stands of arms. He 
immediately sent for the American consul and remarked 
that he had " apportioned his loss among his friends," that 
the share of the United States was ten thousand stands, 
and that they must be furnished without delay. " It is im- 
possible," replied the consul, " to state this claim to my gov- 
ernment. We have no magazines of small arms. The 
organization of our national strength is dift'erent from that 
of every other nation on earth. Each citizen carries his 
own arms, always ready, for battle. When threatened 
with invasion, or actually invaded, detachments from the 
whole national body are sent by rotation to serve in the 
field : so that we have no need of standing armies nor de- 
positories of arms." ^ 

The most picturesque feature of the military system 
thus forcibly expounded to the sulky and incredulous 
Tunisian despot was May Training, which many New 
Englanders of the older generation remember as the 
favorite holiday of their boyhood. Besides the inspec- 
tions, mock fights, and miscellaneous evolutions, there 
were shooting matches, feats of strength, side shows, 
fakirs, and other accessories of the modern county fair. 
Boys saved their coppers for months and walked barefoot 

1 Life of Gen. William Eaton, Brookfield, 1813, pp. 204-5. 



ARMY AND NAVY 209 

for miles to enjoy the fun. When they were eighteen 
years old, they were themselves liable to military duty. 

Mr. Thomas was so good an American, and his annual 
represented the life of his time so well, that we should be 
surprised if he did not refer to the obligations of a citizen 
in military matters as well as in civil. We shall not find 
him lacking in proper spirit. In the Farmer's Calendar 
for September, 1811, there is a suggestion to parents: — 

If your sons have no uniform for trainings, you ought imme- 
diately to see that they are supplied. Send them to training 
neat and clean, with good equipments, and inculcate in them the 
principles of subordination and decency of behaviour while under 
command. 

In 1816 the Almanac gives a table of fines which 
affords a certain amount of curious information. The 
" two spare flints, priming wire, and brush " recall forcibly 
the progress of gunmaking in the course of a century. 
Everybody has seen flints, but few of the younger genera- 
tion have ever snapped a flintlock, and " a flash in the 
pan " has become a mere figure of speech, as archaic in 
its flavor as " hoist with his own petard." As for " prim- 
ing wires and brushes," they are preserved as relics and 
curiosities, but most of us have very hazy ideas of their 
exact function. However, it is high time to give the table 
of penalties. 

MILITARY FINES, ACCORDING TO THE LATEST 
MILITIA LAW, PASSED IN 18 10. 

NON appearance ist Tuesday in May 
Do do. at company training 

Deficiency of gun, bayonet and belt, or ramrod 
Do. of cartridge box, cartridges or knapsack 

Do. of two spare flints, priming wire, or brush 

14 



dolls. 


cts. 


3 


00 


2 


00 


I 


00 





30 



12 


oo 


4 


oo 


5 


oo 


I 


oo 



2IO THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

dolls. Cts. 
Disorderly firing, not more than 20 dollars nor less 

than 5 00 

Neglecting to warn for exercise, not more than twenty 

dollars nor less than 
Neglect of regimental duty 
Disorderly behaviour, not more than 20 dollars nor 

less than 
Neglecting to meet to choose officers 
Giving false information, or refusing to give names of 

persons liable to do military duty 20 00 

Unmilitary conduct of musicians, not more than twenty 

dollars nor less than 10 00 

Neglect of towns in providing ammunition, not more 

than five hundred dollars, nor less than 20 00 

Neglect in wearing uniform 2 00 

In case of detachment, and orders to march, for re- 
lease, if paid in twenty-four hours after, 50 00 

The enrolled Militia consists of persons from eighteen to 
forty-five years of age. Annual inspection, first Tuesday in May, 
when the rules and articles are to be publickly read to the 
companies. Each captain must parade his company on three 
several days in addition to the annual inspection. 

All persons between the age of forty and forty-five are exempted 
from all military duty, by paying annually to the Town Treasurer 
the sum of two dollars, on or before the first Tuesday in May, 
and produce his receipt to the commanding officer before the 
first Tuesday in May, in each year. 

This table is repeated yearly until 1829, with a shift in 
the lower limit of exemption from forty to thirty-five, 
according to the law of 1822. After 1829 there are va- 
rious modifications, as the statutes changed. In 1831 we 
find this significant provision: — "Treating with ardent 
spirits on days of military duty, and at elections of officers 
is prohibited; and Courts Martial may punish for all 



ARMY AND NAVY 211 

offences by reprimand, removal from office and fines not 
exceeding ^200. at their discretion." This was at the time 
of the great temperance movement in New England. 

One of the offences mentioned in the table of fines is 
" Neglecting to meet to choose officers," for which a pen- 
alty of one dollar is imposed. This reminds us of the 
most distinguished occasion of the kind, — the Artillery 
Election of the Ancients and Honorables. A description 
of the ceremony, with a respectful tribute to the Ancients 
themselves, may be found in William Tudor's Letters on 
the Eastern States, published in 1820: — 

Among the public institutions, there are two which deserve par- 
ticular notice. The first is a military company, which was incorpo- 
rated in the commencement of the colony, to form a school for 
officers ; — but religious feelings were strongly united with mili- 
tary ones in its establishment. It now contains between one and 
two hundred members, who are, or have been, almost every one 
of them, officers, either in the regular service or in the militia ,• — 
of course, among the privates, are generals, colonels, &c. The 
original intention was, that this should be a school for military 
discipline and instruction, — and that they should keep in mind 
their duty to religion, so as to form a corps of Christian soldiers. 
For this purpose, their anniversary is publicly celebrated, — the 
governor, and other persons in civil authority, attending it, and 
going in procession to a church, where an appropriate sermon 
is preached to them on the joint duties of the Christian and the 
soldier. After this annual sermon, they have a dinner in Faneuil 
Hall, to which a large number of guests are invited ; — and in 
the afternoon, the company escort the governor to the Common, 
where he receives the insignia of the officers for the past year, and 
confers them on those who have been elected to their places. A 
short speech is made on giving and receiving these commissions. 
This company is now on a respectable footing, but perhaps more 
might be made of it. Their anniversary, however, affords one of 
the prettiest fetes we have. It is called the Artillery Election, 



212 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

and takes place in the month of June, — and on this occasion, 
eight or ten thousand people are collected, to see the ceremonies 
in the Common. In this, as in many other cases, the spectators 
themselves afford the most pleasing spectacle.^ 

In contrast with this pleasing spectacle may be cited the 
experiences of a militia captain as described in a humorous 
anecdote, credited to the New York Constellation, in the 
Almanac for 1833 : — ' 

A MILITIA CAPTAIN. 

A captain of militia, was in the habit of swearing ' by forty. ^ 
He had, like many other officers who commanded ' slab ' com- 
panies, a troublesome set of fellows to deal with. 

One training day, when the soldiers behaved as usual, very dis- 
orderly, he drew his sword, and furiously brandishing it in the air, 
exclaimed — ' Fellow sogers, I swear by forty, if you don't behave 

better I '11 put every d 1 of you under ^rest ! ' 'I wish you 

would give us a little rest^ said half a dozen voices, ' for we 're 
e'en a-most tired to death.' — 'Order! order! fellow sogers,' 
roared the captain, with another tremendous flourish of his sword. 
The word was no sooner spoken, than they all come to order, 
bringing down the breaches of their guns with all violence, each 
upon his neighbor's toes — which threw the ranks into greater 
disorder than before, * Dress ! dress 1 ' bawled the captain. — 
* We are dressed, most of us,' replied a fellow, who was barefoot, 
and had on a rimless hat. — ' Now by forty,' said the captain, 
' that 's one tarnal lie ; you aint above half dressed, if that 's what 
you mean — but I mean something else — I mean you sould 
dress in the milintary sense of the word.' ' How 's that, cap- 
tain?' cried half a dozen voices. — 'How's that! you fools 
you,' exclaimed the captain, ' by forty, have you been so long 
under my training, and don't know the meaning of dress? Form 
a straight line ! I say — form a straight line ! ' 

1 New York, 1S20, Letter XV, pp. 310-11 ; 2d ed., Boston, 1S21, pp. 368-9. 



ARMY AND NAVY- 213 

The soldiers made sundry ineffectual efforts to get into a straight 
line, and the captain begun to despair of ever straightening them, 
when his military genius, suddenly suggested to him the novel 
expedient of backing his men up against a fence, which fortu- 
nately happened to be straight. 

* Tention ! fellow sogers,' said he in a stentorian voice, ' Ad- 
vance backwards ! Music, quick step ! ' The soldiers made a 
quick retrograde movement, and come with their backs plump 
against the fence. — ' There ! by forty,' said the captain, * now 
see if you can keep straight.' But he had scarcely performed this 
manoeuvre, and being about to resume the manual exercise, when 
the clouds began to threaten rain ; the soldiers squinting at the 
aspect, began to desert their ranks, and hasten towards a neigh- 
boring tavern. ' Halt ! halt ! ' roared the captain — ' halt ! I 
say fellow sogers ; where the d 1 are you going to ? ' 

* We 're going to get out of the rain.' ' Out of the rain ! you 
cowards ! Halt ! I say, or I '11 stick the first man I can catch,' 
' I '11 take care you sha'nt catch me,' shouted each one, as he 
took to his heels. In less than a minute, the whole company had 
deserted ; and the captain had little chance of sticking them, for 
very good reason, he could not overtake them. 

' By forty ! ' said he, after standing speechless for a minute or 
two, ' If this don't beat all, just as I had got them into a straight 
line by a new manoeuvre — to desert me thus ! But there 's no use 
in keeping the field all alone ; I may as well go to the tavern too.' 
So saying, he sheathed his sword, and followed his soldiers. 

The following inventory of the United States Navy, pub- 
lished in the Almanac for 18 14, was of vital interest then, 
in the thick of the War of 18 12, and will not be read with 
indifference by any American to-day: — 

NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. —JULY, 18 13. " 

Najnes Guns Names Guns 

Constitution 44 Isaac Hull 10 

United States .... 44 Conquest 8 

President 44 Hamilton 8 



214 



THE OED farmer's ALMANACK 



Names Guns 

Macedonian 38 

Constellation . . . . . 36 

Congress 36 

New-York 36 

Essex 32 

Adams 32 

Boston 32 

General Pike 32 

Madison 28 

John Adams 20 

Louisiana 20 

Alert 18 

Argus 18 

Hornet 18 

Oneida 18 

Troupe 18 

Revenge* 16 

Syren 14 

Nonsuch 14 

Enterprize 14 

Carolina 14 

Comet* 14 

Duke of Gloucester ... 12 

President 12 

Petapsco * 12 



Names Guns 

Raven 8 

Scourge 8 

Governor Tompkins . . 6 

Scorpion 6 

Growler 5 

Fair American .... 4 

Viper 12 

Lady of the Lake ... 3 

Pert 3 

Julia 2 

Elizabeth 2 

Ontario i 

Adeline — 

Asp — 

Analoston — 

Despatch — 

Ferret — 

Neptune — 

Perseverance .... — 

^tna bomb 

Mary do. 

Spitfire do. 

Vengeance .... do. 
Vesuvius do. 



Beside the above there are a number of Revenue Cutters, and 
about one hundred and seventy-eight Gun-Boats. 

Two sloops of war have lately been launched on Lake Erie. 

The vessels names which are in Italicks have been captured 
from the British since the commencement of the present war. 

Those marked thus (*) are hired by the United States. 

The brief remark that " two sloops of vi'ar have lately- 
been launched on Lake Erie " reminds us that Perry's 
Victory was won about two months after the date of this 
list, on September loth, 1813. The vessels referred to are 
probably the brigs Lawrence and Niagara. The list is a 
little too early to include Perry's squadron ; but it gives 




«3 
§ 



5 



CD 

o 

Ed 
O 



o 
e 



hi 






s§ 






to to 



ARMY AND NAVY 21 5 

the names of some of the most famous vessels that ever 
belonged to our navy. The Essex and the Alert both 
appear, — the latter as captured from the enemy. She 
was, in fact, the first British national vessel to be taken 
in the war, and the Essex, under Porter, was her captor. 
The name Hornet reminds us of the great fight between 
the Hornet and the Peacock (February 24, 181 3), for 
which Lawrence received a medal from Congress. The 
United States, Decatur's ship, and her prize the Macedonian 
both appear in the inventory. The frigate President, whose 
fight with the Little Belt, preceded the outbreak of the 
war, was soon to distinguish herself by a clever piece of 
blockade-running. The exploits of the Constitution are 
too well-known to need repetition. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 

IN 1834 Miss Harriet Martineau came to America in 
search of mental refreshment and change of scene. 
She spent a couple of years in this country and has left a 
record of her experiences and impressions in two books 
which have won a respectable place in the great class 
of miscellaneous literature, — Society in America, and 
Retrospect of Western Travel, — besides the minute ac- 
count of her connection with the anti-slavery movement 
which she gives in her Autobiography. With the mass 
of these writings we have at this moment no particular 
concern, but one incident must not pass without notice. 
In an idle hour, — or let us say rather in a moment of 
peculiar inspiration, — Miss Martineau had recourse to a 
certain " old almanack," where she discovered something 
to point an excellent moral. Here is her account of the 
discovery : — 

All young people in these [New England] villages are more or 
less instructed. Schooling is considered a necessary of life. I 
happened to be looking over an old almanack one day, when I 
found, among the directions relating to the preparations for winter 
on a farm, the following : " Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten 
loose clap-boards and shingles. Secure a good school-master." 
It seemed doubtful, at the first glance, whether some new farming 
utensil had not been thus whimsically named ; as the brass plate 
which hooks upon the fender, or upper bar of the grate, is called 
" the footman " ; but the context clearly showed that a man 
with learning in his head was the article required to be provided 
before the winter.^ 

1 Society in America, London, 1837, I, 264. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 21/, 

It must be admitted, even by Miss Martineau's warmest 
admirers, that she did not always comprehend the Ameri- 
can character. Indeed, she had the good sense not to 
suppose that she could comprehend it. Just before she 
sailed for the United States, James Mill asked her, quizzi- 
cally, whether she " expected to understand the Ameri- 
cans " in two years. " He was glad to find," writes Miss 
Martineau, " that I had no such idea, and told me that 
five-and-twenty years before, he had believed that he under- 
stood the Scotch : and that in another five-and-twenty, he 
should no doubt understand the English ; but that now he 
was quite certain that he understood neither the one nor 
the other," ^ It was hardly this warning that sent Miss 
Martineau to the old almanac, but rather her own sagacity, 
or perhaps a happy accident. At all events, she lighted 
upon a highly characteristic passage, and it is to her credit 
that she did not fail to perceive what it signifies, — that to 
procure a schoolmaster is as much a matter of course to 
a Yankee farmer as any other provision for the winter 
season. To his mind there is nothing incongruous between 
attention to loose shingles and solicitude for primary 
education. 

It does not appear what almanac Miss Martineau con- 
sulted. Very possibly it was that of Mr, R. B. Thomas. 
The precise passage, to be sure, has not been discovered in 
the sayings of the Old Farmer; but she may have been 
quoting from memory, and the form and the sentiment 
both suggest the admonitions of the Farmer's Calendar. 
That column contains, along with its precepts of practical 
agriculture, much exhortation on the subject of schools and 
schoolmasters. Some of the entries are characteristic 
enough to deserve reproduction. Besides, they are not 
without value as bits of country life at the end of the 
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. 

1 Autobiography, Boston, 1877, I, 329. 



2l8 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

A passage which comes very near to Miss Martineau's 
quotation occurs in the Farmer's Calendar for November, 
1 804 : — 

Now let the noise of your flail awake your drowsy neighbours. 
Bank up your cellars. 

Now hire a good schoolmaster, and send your children to 
school as much as possible. 

In November, 18 10, there is also a near approach to 
what Miss Martineau read : — 

Bank your cellars unless your underpinning is such as renders 
it unneedful. Drive all your loose nails ; and if the boys have 
broken any glass during the summer in the windows, you find it 
more comfortable to have the hole stopped up, than to let it go 
over winter. Send your children to school. Every boy should 
have a chance to prepare himself to do common town business. 

In December, 1801, we have a good piece of proverbial 
philosophy : — 

" A cheap school-master makes a dear school^'' says Common 
Sense. As this is the season for opening schools in the country, 
the above adage may be worthy of attention. Experience 
teaches, that the master, who will keep for 8 dollars per month, is 
not worth the keeping : yet some towns, to save 2 dollars, give 
away 10. 

Again, in December, 1803 and 1805 : — 

It is hoped that every town and village is now supplied with a 
wise and virtuous school-master ; not ten dollar men — such pitiful 
pedants are too plenty. (1803.) 

Attend to your schools. Hire not what neighbor Simpkins 
calls a four dollar master to instruct your children ; it will be 
throwing away money. He who deprives his children of education, 
at once robs himself and society. (1805.) 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 2ig 

But the liveliest passage of the kind is in the Calendar 
for November, 1820, where we have not only a full account 
of the acquirements of a five-dollar master, but also an 
eloquent speech from one of the advocates of ill-judged 
economy: — 

This is the last month of Autumn, and it is now the business 
of the prudent man to be making his calculations about winter 
matters, I have often mentioned the importance of schooling to 
the rismg generation. Few, if any countries, are blest like New- 
England, with public school establishments. No stinginess about 
the business. See that you have an able master, and pay him 
well. Here my neighbour Hugpurse and I can never agree ; for 
he says, " So much of this here larnin is altogether useless and 
expensive. There is Joe Simple is good enough for our school. 
He has cyphered through compound interest, and that 's fur 
enough for any man. He knows nothing about Jogrify and 
Grammar and such stuff; but he can write as good a hand as I 
can ; and as for reading, he is far better than Squire Puff. In 
spelling they say he is curious. I have often heard that when a 
boy he could spell Nebuchadnezza)- quicker than any one in 
school. I move, Mr. cheersman, that we hire Joe Simple to keep 
our school this winter. Give him five dollars a month and board 
himself, which is all he axes." 

Mr. Thomas knew what he was talking about. He had 
been a country pedagogue himself; and, though he did 
not fall in love with the profession — in fact, he tells that 
he grew heartily tired of it — he had always been success- 
ful in his schoolmastering.i He felt a proper contempt 
for the shortsighted stinginess of ignorant committeemen, 
and cherished no illusions as to the quality of the cheap 
pretenders to learning whose services they secured for 
little or nothing. He must have known many Ichabod 
Cranes and Joe Simples in his day. But schoolmasters 

1 See p. 6, above. 



220 THE OLD FARMER S ALMANACK 

like Joe Simple were not the only pretenders whom Mr. 
Thomas satirized. He was equally severe on those who 
aped the follies of fine gentlemen. Thus in December, 
1 815, we read : — 

It is all important now that you send your children to school ; 
but take care that you have a good instructor for them. It is 
not everyone who apes the gentleman that is fit for this under- 
taking. To strut in white top boots, brandish a canee, drink 
brandy, and smoke segars, are not the most essential qualifications 
for a schoolmaster. It is a serious misfortune that in many parts 
our country schools are exceedingly neglected ; and it would 
seem that were it not for the law's obliging them to have at least 
the appearance of schools, there would be no provision at all for 
this purpose made for years ! What better estate can you give 
your offspring than a good education? I would not urge you to 
send them to college — neither to an academy ; but see that you 
have the best of teachers in your town schools ; be not stingy 
about the price — let not your children suffer for shoes and other 
clothing to make them comfortable and decent — Town schools 
are of the first importance, for here and in the family at home is 
laid the foundation of the future man, whether he be great, or 
mean, an honest man, or a scoundrel. 

Top-boots and cigar-smoking seem to have gone to- 
gether. Robert Sutcliff, the English Quaker, who travelled 
in America from 1804 to 1806, shared Mr. Thomas's 
suspicion of both articles. " I have remarked," he writes, 
" that some people in America have a great predilection 
for wearing boots, and for smoking segars. Even children 
of five or six years of age, are sometimes seen, in their 
boots smoking segars." ^ Most of Mr. Thomas's early 
readers, if they smoked at all, doubtless smoked pipes, 
for the cigar (or segar, as there was a tendency to spell the 
word about this time) was not only citified, but was re- 

1 Travels in some Parts of North America, in the years 1804, 1805, and 
1806, 2d ed., York, 181 5, p. 103. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 221 

garded as indicative of riotous living. Perhaps, therefore 
the following entry, honestly meant as it certainly was, 
suggested no roguish thoughts to the contemporary agri- 
culturist. To the modern smoker it has a sinister sound. 
It occurs in the Farmer's Calendar for June 12, 1796: — 

Set cabbages and tobacco. 

And, as if a word to the wise were not always sufficient 
in tricks of the trade, we have, a year later, in June, 1797, 
an additional injunction: — 

Set more cabbages and tobacco. 

The word more has some significance. It involves a 
pleasant suggestion of the " constant reader," the " old 
subscriber." In consulting the Calendar for June of one 
year, the farmer who is faithful to the admonitions of the 
Almanac will surely remember what he did, or shunned, 
the year before. " More cabbages and tobacco," then, 
must not be taken as the helpless reiteration of an almanac- 
writer at his wit's end. It implies, rather, that the author 
believes in himself and has reason to think that his public 
has confidence in him. " You planted cabbages and 
tobacco last year, no doubt, as I advised. Very well ! 
Plant some more now. You see my counsel was good." 

A lesson for parents, as apposite now as it ever was, 
may be found in the December Calendar for 1807. Here 
also Mr. Thomas was speaking from experience : — 

Let your children go to school as much as possible ; and do not 
interfere with the orders and regulations of the master. When 
your little darling Jemmy is whipt at school it is a miserable way to 
give him gingerbread, and call the master puppy, rascal, &c. &c. 

And again, in February, 1809: — 

Keep the boys at school as much as possible, and take care 
not to rail against the master in their presence. Some people 



222 THE OLD FARMER S ALMANACK 

are eternally complaining about the schoolmaster or mistress. 
Let the school be never so well kept, they will be dissatisfied. 

Another kind of admonition, in the Calendar for Decem- 
ber, 1812, sounds strange to modern ears: — 

Now you have an opportunity for schooling your children; 
and what can you give them to more profit? Riches and honors 
will fly away, but a good education, with habitual improvement, 
will abide by them, and be a source of pleasure and profit, when 
business and money, and friends fail them. But do not let them 
be prevented from going to school for want of shoes, &c. They 
should have been well shod before this time. 

This observation about staying at home for lack of shoes 
recalls the fact that going barefoot was far commoner a 
hundred (or even thirty) years ago than it is to-day. 
" Old enough to go to meeting barefooted " is a Yankee 
proverb not yet forgotten, though not, of course, to be 
taken seriously. An old New Englander who, in 1837, 
wrote reminiscences of his youth for the Old Colony 
Memorial, is very clear on this matter. He is speaking 
of ordinary attire in the country districts. " Old men," 
he says, " had a great coat and a pair of boots. The boots 
generally lasted for life . . . Shoes and stockings were not 
worn by the young men, and by but few men in farming 
business." As for the young women, he informs us that 
in the summer, when engaged in their ordinary work, they 
" did not wear stockings and shoes." ^ 

We may close our series of extracts with two eloquent 
utterances of a generally admonitory character: — 

Let your children go to school. No country in the world is so 
blest with schooling as New- England ; then neglect not to im- 
prove this excellent advantage. (December, 1806.) 

1 Collections of the New-Hampshire Historical Society, 1837, V, 226-7. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 223 

It is a duty to educate our children in the ways of frugaUty and 
economy, as well as industry. In some it is owing to inattention, 
in others to parsimony that their children are kept from school. 
The heedless man who can just write his name and pick out a 
chapter or two in his bible and perhaps find the changes of the 
moon in his almanack, thinks that his children and his children's 
children are to go on in the same way with himself, and so is 
regardless of their education ; but the penurious man, if it cost a 
cent, will see them hanged before they shall be taught to spell 
Caleb. (March, 18 13.) 

A generation ago there was a stock question which used 
to be asked of school children : " What is the chief glory 
of New England ? " And the reply was a matter of clock- 
work : " The chief glory of New England is in her public 
schools." The children had their doubts, but they an- 
swered dutifully. This kind of catechising is out of fash- 
ion now, and the mere thought of it provokes a smile 
among educational theorists ; but it had its uses. In the 
case in hand, it called attention to the fact that schools do 
not spring up of themselves; and it may now and then 
have reminded the rising generation of certain items of 
indebtedness to the Puritan past. This whole subject of 
New England schooling is not easy to discuss without los- 
ing one's equilibrium. On the one hand, we are habituated 
to a good deal of undiscriminating eulogy of our ancestors, 
as if they never faltered in their zeal for education. On 
the other, there are the iconoclasts, who make much of the 
difficulty there was in enforcing the school laws.^ There is 
evidence of such difficulty. A Massachusetts Act of 1701 
declares that the previous statute " is shamefully neglected 
by divers Towns." In an Election Sermon for 1709 the 

^ The Massachusetts laws which particularly concern us are those of 
1647 (Mass. Colony Records, H, 203), 1692 {4 Wm. and Mary, ch. xi), 
1701 (13 Wm. in, ch. xx), 1789 (Acts, ch. xix), and 1824 (Acts, ch. cxi, 
amending the Act of 1789). 



224 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

Rev. Grindal Rawson, of Mendon, exclaims : " How little 
care is there generally taken, especially in Country Towns, 
to promote the Liberal Education of Children? How 
much is it become the Practice of many Towns, to Study 
Tricks and Shifts whereby the Law of the Land obliging to 
the upholding and maintaining of Schools, may be wholly 
evaded and lose its Efficacy? And is not this Provoking 
to God, and disserviceable to the interest of Posterity?"^ 
In 1 713 Cotton Mather, in one of his innumerable jere- 
miads, — called Advice from the Watch Tower, in a Testi- 
mony against Evil Customs, — censures the evasion of 
this law: — "To Elude the Law about Schools, is too 
Customary. It argues, that a due sense of that Grand 
Concern, the Education of Childrc?i, is too much laid 
aside among us. — Tis Wonderful! Tis Wonderful! That 
a People of our Profession would seem so unconcerned, 
Lest the next Generation be miserably Uncultivated, and 
have hideous Barbarity grow upon it ! " 

All this, however, should not mislead us. The facts are 
clear enough, and the anxiety of the preachers is really a 
favorable symptom. The significant thing is not that the 
laws were not always obeyed, but that the colonial and pro- 
vincial authorities made an honest attempt to enforce them, 
and that the outcome of their efforts was, when time was 
ripe, a public school system which, though not perfect, is 
at all events a remarkable achievement. We should regard 
the general tendency and the final results. We have a 
good many diaries kept by soldiers in the Revolutionary 
War. Most of these are rudely spelled and not very exact 
in point of grammar. They show that the rank and file 
were not highly educated, and they have often been cited 
as proof that the schools and schoolmasters of the eight- 
eenth century were poor things. What they really prove, 

1 The Necessity of a Speedy and Thorough Reformation, Boston, 1709, 
p. 36. 



Advice from the Watch Tower. 



In a TESTIMONY againft 

EVIL CUSTOMES. 

A brief ESSAY 
To declare the Danger & Afifchief of ill 

Evil Cuftomes, 

in. general ^ 

Arid Offer a more particular CATA- 
LOGUE of EVIL CUSTOMES grow- 
ing upon U9 J 

With certain METHODS for the Pie- 
yention and Suppreflion of them. 



Hab. II. I. I will fl and npon my Watchy and 
fet me -upon the 'SoVoer^ and xvill vpatch to 
fee what I jhall anfwer upon my Reproof. 

Luk. XXI. 13. 
It f) all turn to you j or a TESTIMONY, 

V'tnce/e Confuetudincmy dura eflpugna. Auguft, 
Z/fitata Culfit ohlignt mentcm, wf nfi-:uqu.i?r, Ju/gerc foiftt 

ad Rcditudinem. Grcgor. 
Dominus nojler CHRISTUS, Vvriutemfe^ non Confue- 
" tttdinem, Cogrtominnvit. Tertul. 

ygy 4/J^M^^U^ 

Boflon^ Printed "by J. Allen^ tor N» Boone^ 
at the Sign of the Blhle in CornhilL lyii^ 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 22$ 

however, ts that almost every New Englander could read 
and write, and this, after all, is a pretty creditable showing. 
When John Adams was in England in 1786, he fell in with 
a Virginian, Major Langbourne, who had "taken the whim 
of walking all over Europe, after having walked over 
most of America." The Major lamented " the difference 
of character between Virginia and New England." " I 
offered," writes Adams, " to give him a receipt for mak- 
ing a New England in Virginia. He desired it ; and I 
recommended to him town meetings, training days, town 
schools, and ministers, giving him a short explanation of 
each article. The meeting-house and school-house and 
training field are the scenes where New England men were 
formed. Colonel Trumbull, who was present, agreed that 
these are the ingredients. In all countries and in all com- 
panies, for several years, I have, in conversation and in 
writing, enumerated the towns, militia, schools, and 
churches, as the four causes of the growth and defence 
of New England. The virtues and talents of the people 
are there formed; their temperance, patience, fortitude, 
prudence, and justice, as well as their sagacity, knowledge, 
judgment, taste, skill, ingenuity, dexterity, and industry." ^ 
Here is an uncommonly interesting bit of autobiography 
from the middle of the eighteenth century. The writer, 
Rufus Putnam, was an officer of distinction, whom Wash- 
ington pronounced the best engineer on the American 
side in the Revolution." No one can doubt that the New 
England spirit finds a truer expression in the boy's strug- 
gles to learn something than in the nonchalance of his 
guardians. 

In Sep' 1747, I went to live with my Step Father, Capt John 
Sadler (at Upton) and continued with him untill his death (in 
September or October 1753) 

1 Diary, July 21, 1786, Works, ed. C. F. Adams, III, 400. 
15 



226 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

during the six year I lived with Cap* Sadler, I never Saw the 
inside of a School house, except about three weeks, he was 
very ilhterate himself, and took no care for the education of his 
family; but this was not all I was made a ridecule of, and 
otherwise abused for my attention to books, and attempting to 
write, and learn Arethmatic, however, amidst all those dis- 
couragements I made Some advances in writeing and Arethmatic, 
that is I could make Letters that could be under stood, and had 
gon as far in Arethmatic as to work the rule of three (without any 
teacher but the book) — Oh ! my Children beware you neglect 
not the education of any under your care as I was neglected. — 

In March 1754 I was bound apprentice to Daniel Mathews of 
Brokfield, to the Millw[r]ights trade ; by him my education was as 
much neglected, as by Capt Sadler, except that he did not deny 
me the use of a Light for Study in the winter evenings — 

I turned my attention chiefly to Arethmatic, Geography, and 
history ; had I ben as much engaged in Learning to write well, 
with Spelling, and Gramer, I might have ben much better quali- 
fied to fulfill the duties of the Succeeding Scenes of Life, which In 
providence I have ben called to pass through. I was zealous to 
obtain knowledge, but having no guide I knew not where to begin 
nor what course to pursue, — hence neglecting Spelling and 
gramer when young I have Suffered much through life on that 
account.^ 

The Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1 781, laid 
special emphasis on the duty of the Commonwealth with 
regard to education. In the same year the legislature 
passed an elaborate law providing for both elementary 
and grammar schools.^ By grammar schools, we should 
remember, was always meant what we now call Latin or 
High schools. If we compare this act of 1789 with the 
original law of 1647, we shall find that it is less exacting. 

1 Memoirs of Rufus Putnam, ed. by Miss Rowena Buell, Boston, 1903, 
pp. 9-1 1. 

2 Acts of 1789, ch. xix. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 22/ 

Instead of requiring a grammar school in every town of 
one hundred families, it raises the limit to two hundred. 
This change is estimated to have released one hundred 
and twenty towns from an obligation under which they had 
lain for many years.^ Doubtless, however, it was as rigor- 
ous a rule as the country could bear. What had seemed 
possible in the compact and homogeneous Colony was no 
longer practicable in the growing State. 

This act of 1789 brings us down to the time of the 
Farmer's Almanack. It defines the conditions which Mr. 
Thomas had in mind in his constant exhortations.^ In the 
lower schools the master was " to teach children to read 
and write, and to instruct them in the English language, 
as well as in arithmetic, orthography, and decent be- 
haviour." The higher schools were to be provided with 
" a grammar schoolmaster of good morals, well instructed 
in the Latin, Greek and English languages." 

An idea of the impression which the schools of New 
England made upon a highly cultivated and philosophical 
foreigner may be got from a passage in Rochefoucault's 
Travels in North America. The distinguished French- 
man, who belonged to the school of Arthur Young, is 
speaking of Connecticut in 1795: — 

There is ... no instance of a town or parish, remaining, 
negligendy, without a school. Many communities maintain their 
schools for a greater part of the year, than they are, by law, 
obliged to do. The select-men and the deputations from the 
communities manage the farms and other revenues of the schools. 

The teachers are commonly young men from the colleges, 
students of law or theology. Their salaries are at the pleasure of 
the different parishes, from two to three hundred dollars. Al- 

1 G. H. Martin, The Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School 
System, New York, 1894, lecture iii. 

2 There was no further law until 1824 : Acts of 1824, ch. cxi (amending 
the act of 1789). 



228 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

most all those who now act a distinguished part in the political 
business of New England, began their career as teachers in these 
schools ; a situation that is accounted exceedingly honourable. 
Sometimes, where the salary is small, women are chosen to be 
the teachers. Even these must, in this case, be well qualified to 
teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

Every county must have a school for Greek and Latin. A fine 
of three dollars is exacted from parents neglecting to send their 
children to school. The select-men have authority to levy it.^ 

No account of our schools, however brief and inci- 
dental, can ignore the Academy, — that peculiarly New 
England institution which has played so important a part 
in the social and educational life of America, The smaller 
towns had found it impossible to support classical schools ; 
but there was no actual falling-off in the zeal for educa- 
tion. Academies were founded, partly by bequests from 
public-spirited citizens, partly by voluntary contributions 
from subscribers. These multiplied exceedingly in the late 
eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, and many 
of them were subsidized by the States. Most of them 
have gone out of existence, becoming unnecessary as 
wealth increased and the towns were able once more to 
assume the duty of maintaining high schools. But the 
stronger institutions of the kind, which are also among 
the oldest, have survived and flourished. They are a dis- 
tinctive feature of the educational system of the whole 
United States. Their importance is no longer merely 
local ; it is national. 

Mr. Thomas makes an amusing remark about academies 
in the Farmer's Calendar for December, 1808: — 

Now let your boys and girls attend school. Send them to the 
common town school, rather than to an academy. Fun, frolick, 

1 Travels through the United States of North America, English transla- 
tion, London, 1799, I, 530. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 229 

and filigree are too much practised at the academies for the 
benefit of a farmer's boy. Let them have a soUd and useful 
education. 

This should not be misunderstood. It is not an assault 
on the academy as an institution. It is merely a caution 
against sending a boy to an inappropriate school. Acade- 
mies, in Mr. Thomas's opinion, were not meant for those 
who were to spend their lives on the farm. He was no 
enemy to ambition, but he wished to see it intelligently 
guided. 

It will be noticed that Mr. Thomas mentions girls as 
well as boys in this last exhortation. The education of 
girls was neglected in the early days. In 1782 the Rev. 
John Eliot wrote from Boston to Jeremy Belknap, then 
minister at Dover, New Hampshire: — 

We don't pretend to teach y^ female part of y^ town any- 
thing more than dancing, or a little music perhaps, (and these 
accomplishm'. must necessarily be confined to a very few,) except 
y^ private schools for writing, which enables them to write a copy, 
sign their name, &c., which they might not be able to do without 
such a priviledge, & with it I will venture to say that a lady is a 
rarity among us who can write a page of commonplace sentiment, 
the words being well spelt, & y*" style & language kept up with 
purity & elegance.^ 

Two years later Caleb Bingham opened a private school 
for girls, commonly said to have been the first girls' school 
ever known in Boston. The letter just quoted shows that 
this idea is not strictly correct. Yet Bingham's establish- 
ment was so far in advance of the mere writing classes 
which Mr. Eliot mentions that it deserves its reputation. 
" He taught not only writing and arithmetic, but reading, 
spelling, and English grammar," thus meeting precisely 

1 Feb. I, 1782. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 6th Series, IV, 223. 



230 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

the needs which Mr. EHot refers to. Bingham's successful 
experiment soon led the town to make some provision for 
the education of girls. This was in 1789, and Bingham 
was employed in one of these new public schools. He 
was the author of several text-books which rivalled those 
of Noah Webster in popularity. His American Preceptor, 
published in 1794, had by 1832 sold to the number of 
nearly six hundred and fifty thousand copies, and his 
Columbian Orator, published in 1797, to the number of 
more than two hundred thousand. He also prepared, for 
his private school, a little English Grammar, The Young 
Lady's Accidence, of which a hundred thousand copies 
were sold by 1832. It was the first English grammar used 
in the schools of Boston.^ Several other private schools 
for girls were established toward the end of the eighteenth 
century. In 1784 Dr. Jedediah Morse, the well-known 
geographer, opened such a school at New Haven, and in 
1790 a Mr. Woodbridge, who gave himself the grandil- 
oquent title of " the Columbus of female education," 
followed his example. Three years before, the Moravian 
brethren had founded a " female seminary " at Bethlehem, 
Pennsylvania. The opposition to any kind of higher 
education for women is amusingly illustrated by the ex- 
perience of Miss Emma Willard, who opened a seminary 
for girls at Troy, New York, in 182 1. She had previously 
conducted what she called a " female academy " at Water- 
ford, in the same state. A friendly minister, who felt it 
his duty to mention this institution in his public prayers, 
styled it a " seminary," not wishing to offend his hearers 
by speaking of it as an " academy " or a " college." Brad- 
ford Academy, in Massachusetts, which still flourishes, was 
founded in 1803.^ 

1 See G. E. Littlefield, Early Schools and School-Books of New England, 
1904, pp. 156, 158, 229-30. 

2 See a paper on The Early History of Schools and School-Books, by 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 23 I 

But chronology is dull work. Let us revert to anecdote, 
and, in so doing, to the old-fashioned grammar school. 
The Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead (who was born at 
Boston in 168 1), after attending the instruction of a school- 
mistress in the town and another in the country, was sent 
to the Latin School in his eighth year, where he was under 
the tuition of " the aged, venerable, and justly famous Mr. 
Ezekiel Cheever," one of the most noted of New England 
preceptors. In his autobiography, written when he was 
eighty-five years old, Mr. Barnard tells a pretty little story 
of " an odd accident" which " drove him from the school 
after a few weeks " : — " There was," he says, " an older lad 
entered the school the same week with me ; we strove who 
should outdo ; and he beat me by the help of a brother in 
the upper class, who stood behind master with the acci- 
dence open for him to read out off; by which means he could 
recite his [MS. illegible] three and four times in a forenoon, 
and the same in the afternoon ; but I who had no such 
help, and was obliged to commit all to memory, could 
not keep pace with him ; so that he would be always one 
lesson before me. My ambition could not bear to be out- 
done, and in such a fraudulent manner, and therefore I 
left the school." ^ 

But he soon returned and got on very well in his studies, 
notwithstanding he was, as he confesses, " a very naughty 
boy, much given to play." At length Mr. Cheever re- 
sorted to an ingenious device. " You Barnard," said he, 
" I know you can do well enough if you will ; but you are 
so full of play that you hinder your classmates from getting 
their lessons ; and therefore, if any of them cannot perform 
their duty, I shall correct you for it." " One unlucky day, 
one of my classmates did not look into his book, and there- 

R. N. Meriam, Collections of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, IX, no. 

27, PP- 93 f- 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist, Soc, 3d Series, V, 178. 



232 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

fore could not say his lesson, though I called upon him 
once and again to mind his book; upon which our master 
beat me. I told master the reason why he could not say 
his lesson was, his declaring he would beat me if any of the 
class were wanting in their duty; since which this boy 
would not look into his book, though I called upon him to 
mind his book, as the class could witness. The boy was 
pleased with my being corrected, and persisted in his 
neglect, for which I was still corrected, and that for several 
days. I thought, in justice, I ought to correct the boy, 
and compel him to a better temper; and therefore, after 
school was done, I went up to him, and told him I had 
been beaten several times for his neglect; and since mas- 
ter would not correct him I would, and I should do so as 
often as I was corrected for him; and then drubbed him 
heartily. The boy never came to school any more, and so 
that unhappy affair ended." ^ 

The temptation to go on with Mr. Barnard's delightful 
anecdotes of his boyhood is great, but must be resisted. 
Still, we may indulge ourselves in one more extract, which 
is very brief, and gives a charming picture of the little boy 
and the veteran schoolmaster: — 

I remember once, in making a piece of Latin, my master found 
fault with the syntax of one word, which was not so used by me 
heedlessly, but designedly, and therefore I told him there was a 
plain grammar rule for it. He angrily replied, there was no such 
rule. I took the grammar and showed the rule to him. Then 
he smilingly said, " Thou art a brave boy ; I had forgot it." And 
no wonder ; for he was then above eighty years old.^ 

Mr. Cheever was master of the Boston Latin School for 
nearly forty years. He died in 1708, at the age of ninety- 
three, and was honored with a singular poetical tribute from 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 3d Series, V, 179-80. 

2 The same, p. 180. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER 233 

the pen of Benjamin Tompson, " the renowned poet of 
New England." ^ It bore a title prophetic of Browning, 
" The Grammarians Funeral," and was printed as a 
broadside.^ It begins : — 

Eight Parts of Speech this Day wear Mourning Gowns 
Declin'd Verbs, Pronoiifis, Participles, Notins. 
And not declined, Adverbs and Conjunctions, 
In Lillies Porch they stand to do their functions. 
With Preposition ; but the most affection 
Was still observed in the Interjection. 

This is quaint enough, but the oddest thing about the 
verses is that they are announced in the broadside as hav- 
ing been originally " composed upon the Death of Mr. 
John Woodtnancy, formerly a School-Master in Boston: 
But now Published upon the Death of the Venerable Mr. 
Ezekiel Chevers." In other words, a second-hand elegy ! 

The chapter may close with a bit from the Almanac for 
1807 (July), which will serve as a fitting epilogue to our 
pedagogical miscellany: — 

/ have more pork in my cellar, said neighbor Braggadocia, 
than all the Almanack makers in Christendom. Fie on your larnin, 
and all that stuff ; I wants none of your nonsense. No man shall 
teach me, faith. Now I forebore to dispute with this great man ; 
for the proverb says, you cannot make a silken purse of a sow's 
ear. 

^ See pp. 356 £., below. 

2 Reproduced by Dr. Samuel A. Green in his Ten Fac-Simile Repro- 
ductions, Boston, 1902, No. III. 



T 



TITLES OF HONOR 

HE Almanac for 1794 contains " A complete list 
of the present CONGRESS of the UNITED 
STATES." At the head stand — 



GEORGE WASHINGTON, LL. D., President of the United 
States, 

JOHN ADAMS, LL. D., Vice-President of the United States, 
and President of the Senate. 

The degree of Doctor of Laws attached to these names 
at once arrests the eye. Such things were more valued in 
those days than they are at present. No one would think 
of specifying a President's academic honors nowadays. 
We are reminded of the satirical words of John Adams 
himself in a letter addressed to Mrs. Mercy Warren, the 
historian, in 1807: — 

There is not a country under heaven in which titles and prece- 
dency are more eagerly coveted than in this country. The title of 
Excellency, and Honor, and Worship, of Councillor, Senator, 
Speaker, Major-General, Brigadier-General, Colonel, Lieutenant- 
Colonel, Major, Captain, Lieutenant, Ensign, Sergeant, Corporal, 
and even Drummer and Fifer, is sought with as furious zeal as 
that of Earl, Marquis, or Duke in any other country; and as 
many intrigues and as much corruption in many cases, are used 
to obtain them.^ 

There is a curious little error afloat with regard to 
Washington's LL. D. It is often asserted, even by care- 
ful writers, that he was the first person to receive this 
1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 5th Series, IV, 439. 



TITLES OF HONOR 235 

honor from Harvard College. The mistake dates from 
1840, when President Quincy's official History of Harvard 
University was published. There we read : — 

After the evacuation of the town of Boston by the British 
troops, which took place on the 17th of March, 1776, con- 
gratulatory addresses from towns and legislatures were univer- 
sally presented to General Washington, for the signal success 
which had attended his measures. The Corporation and Over- 
seers, in accordance with the prevailing spirit and as an " ex- 
pression of the gratitude of this College for his eminent services 
in the cause of his country and to this society," conferred on him 
the degree of Doctor of Laws, by the unanimous vote of both 
boards. General Washington was the first individual on whom 
this degree was conferred by Harvard College. The diploma 
was signed by all the members of the Corporation except John 
Hancock, who was then in Philadelphia, and it was immediately 
published in the newspapers of the period, with an English 
translation. ^ 

In point of fact, the diploma to which President Quincy 
refers bears the signature of a man on whom the same 
degree had been conferred three years before, in 1773. 
This was the distinguished Professor of Mathematics and 
Natural Philosophy, John Winthrop, the fourth in descent 
from Governor Winthrop, and he, not Washington, was the 
first person to receive an LL. D. from Harvard College.^ 

Washington's diploma deserves to be reproduced, in the 
English translation which appeared in the Boston papers 
of the time. It is a good specimen of the academic 
eloquence of the eighteenth century : — 

The CORPORATION of HARVARD COLLEGE in Cam- 
bridge, in New-England, to all the faithful in Christ, to whom 
these Presents shall come, GREETING. 

1 II, 167. 

2 H. H. Edes, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, VII. 



236 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

WHEREAS Academical Degrees were originally instituted for 
this Purpose, That Men, eminent for Knowledge, Wisdom and 
Virtue, who have highly merited of the Republick of Letters and 
the Commonwealth, should be rewarded with the Honor of these 
Laurels ; there is the greatest Propriety in conferring such Honor 
on that very illustrious Gentleman, GEORGE WASHINGTON 
Esq ; the accomplished General of the confederated Colonies in 
America ; whose Knowledge and patriotic Ardor are manifest to 
all : Who, for his distinguished Virtues, both Civil and Military, 
in the first Place being elected by the Suffrages of the Virginians, 
one of their Delegates, exerted himself with Fidelity and singular 
Wisdom in the celebrated Congress of America, for the Defence 
of Liberty, when in the utmost Danger of being for ever lost, 
and for the Salvation of his Country ; and then, at the earnest 
Request of that Grand Council of Patriots, without Hesitation, 
left all the Pleasures of his delightful Seat in Virginia, and the 
Affairs of his own Estate, that through all the Fatigues and 
Dangers of a Camp, without accepting any Reward, he might 
deliver New- England from the unjust and cruel Arms of Britain, 
and defend the other Colonies ; and Who, by the most signal 
Smiles of Divine Providence on his Military Operations, drove 
the Fleet and Troops of the Enemy with disgraceful Precipitation 
from the Town of Boston, which for eleven Months had been 
shut up, fortified, and defended by a Garrison of above seven 
Thousand Regulars ; so that the Inhabitants, who suffered a 
great Variety of Hardships and Cruelties while under the Power 
of their Oppressors, now rejoice in their Deliverance, the neigh- 
bouring Towns are freed from the Tumults of Arms, and our 
University has the agreeable Prospect of being restored to its 
antient Seat. 

Know ye therefore, that We, the President and Fellows of 
Harvard-College in Cambridge, (with the Consent of the Honored 
and Reverend Overseers of our Academy) have constituted and 
created the aforesaid Gentleman, GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
who merits the highest Honor, Doctor of Laws, the Law of 
Nature and Nations, and the Civil Law ; and have given and 



TITLES OF HONOR 237 

granted him at the same Time all Rights, Privileges, and Honors 
to the said Degree pertaining. 

In Testimony whereof, We have affixed the Common Seal of 
our University to these Letters, and subscribed them with our 
Hand writing this Third Day of April in the Year of our Lord 
one Thousand seven Hundred Seventy-six.^ 

The early numbers of the Almanac are not lacking in 
tributes of respect to " that very illustrious gentleman, 
George Washington, Esq.," as the translated diploma calls 
him. One of the most felicitous is incidental. It occurs 
in a kind of epigram addressed to those farmers who allows 
needless anxiety for state affairs to interfere with their 
more immediate concerns : — 

ADVICE. 
To Country Politicians. 

Go weed your corn, and plow your land, 
And by Cohimbia' s interest stand, 

Cast prejudice away ; 
To able heads leave state affairs. 
Give raling o'er, and say your prayers, 

For stores of corn and hay. 
With politics ne'er break your sleep 
But ring your hogs, and shear your sheep. 

And rear your lambs and calves ; 
And Washington will take due care 
That Briton never more shall dare 

Attempt to make you slaves. ^ 

There is a briefer exhortation to a similar effect in the 
Farmer's Calendar for June, 1807: "Cut your clover; 
and mind your business." 

In 1820 the English traveller Hodgson was told by an 

1 Albert Matthews, /(5/V/.,- printed also from the New-England Chronicle 
in J. T. Buckingham's Specimens of Newspaper Literature, Boston, 1850, I, 
223-4. 

2 Almanac for 1796. 



238 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

acquaintance " that much as General Washington rode and 
walked through the streets, during a residence of several 
years in Philadelphia, he seldom passed a window, without 
the party in the room rising to look at him, although they 
might have been in his company the hour before." Hodg- 
son remarks that he had often heard the same thing from 
other Americans.^ 

Yet there were local functionaries who were greater 
than Washington, as was shown by an adventure that 
befell him in Connecticut on a Sunday in 1789. "The 
President," according to the Columbian Centinel, " on 
his return to New-York from his late tour, through 
Connecticut, having missed his way on Saturday, was 
obliged to ride a few miles on Sunday morning, in order 
to gain the town, at which he had previously proposed to 
have attended divine service. — Before he arrived, however, 
he was met by a Tythingman, who commanding him to 
stop, demanded the occasion of his riding ; and it was not 
until the President had informed him of every circumstance, 
and promised to go no further than the town intended, 
that the Tythingman would permit him to proceed on his 
journey." ^ 

A similar adventure is said to have befallen General 
William Eaton in the same State some years later. Gen- 
eral Eaton, however, met the occasion with less repose. 
He had just returned from Africa after his famous march 
across the Desert of Barca and his capture of Derne in the 
war with Tripoli (1805), and was travelling in his carriage 
from Hartford to Boston. On his way through the parish 
of North Coventry, " as he neared the village church, his 
coachman was ordered to stop, with a threatened fine for 
journeying on the Sabbath. As soon as the old soldier 

1 Adam Hodgson, Letters from North America, London, 1S24, II, 18-19. 
- Columbian Centinel, December, 1789, as quoted by Henry M. Brooks, 
New-England Sunday, Boston, 18S6, pp. 1-2. 



TITLES OF HONOR 239 

learned the cause of his detention, he thrust his head from 
a carriage window, and with a pistol in hand he exclaimed : 
'Where is the man who stops my carriage? I don't 
care to shoot him, but I think I will ! ' " The tithingman is 
reported to have taken refuge in the church, and the 
general was allowed to proceed.^ 

1 Jeptha R. Simms, The Frontiersmen of New York, Albany, 1882, I, 
481-2. 



MUNCHAUSEN 

THE humor of hyperbole, as well as that of ironical 
understatement, is quite in accordance with the 
New England character. It would be strange, 
therefore, if our annual miscellany did not afford examples 
of the Munchausen style of anecdote. That which follows 
may be found in the Almanac for 1809: — 

AMUSING. 

Mr. Thomas, 
We have frequently heard of the wonderful feats and extraordi- 
nary stories of Simonds, old Kidder, and Sam Hyde ; but I be- 
lieve neither of them have exceeded the following, related by 

G. H 11, a mighty hunter, and known in that part of the 

country where he lived by the name of the Vermont Nimrod. — It 
may serve to divert some of your evening readers. A. Z. 

" I WAS once," said he, "passing down the banks of the Hud- 
son in search of game, and suddenly heard a crackling on the 
opposite bank. Looking across the river, I saw a stately buck, 
and instantly drew up and let fly at him. That very moment a 
huge sturgeon leaped from the river in the direction of my piece. 
— The ball went through him, and passed on. I flung down my 
gun — threw off my coat and hat, and swam for the floating fish, 
which, mounting, I towed to the bank and went to see what more 
my shot had done for me. I found the ball had passed through 
the heart of the deer, and struck into a hollow tree beyond ; 
where the honey was running out like a river ! I sprung round 
to find something to stop the hole with, and caught hold of a 
white rabbit — It squeaked just like a stuck pig ; so I thrash'd 
it away from me in a passion at the disappointment, and it went 



MUNCHAUSEN 241 

with such force that it killed three cock partridges and a wood 

cock." ! ! ! 

Simonds and old Kidder, who are mentioned by Mr. 
Thomas's facetious correspondent as the heroes of incred- 
ible adventures, have not been identified, and the name 
of " the Vermont Nimrod " is as puzzling a question as 
those propounded by Sir Thomas Browne, — "What song 
the Sirens sang or what name Achilles assumed when he 
hid himself among women." Sam Hyde, however, is a 
more familiar personage. In 1820 Mr. Thomas remarks, 
in rejecting an anecdote offered by a correspondent, that 
it " smells too strong of the marvellous " and " is better 
calculated for Sam Hyde's Register." Sam has even be- 
come proverbial. " To lie like Sam Hyde " is still a New 
England saying, though, like so many old saws, it is going 
out of use as the population becomes more mixed. He is 
said to have been an Indian, and here is his biography as 
it stands in S. G. Drake's Book of the Indians. If it is not 
true, it is all the more appropriate in view of Sam's talent 
for mendacity. 

Sam Hide. — There are few, we imagine, who have not heard 
of this personage ; but, notwithstanding his great notoriety, we 
might not be thought serious in the rest of our work, were we to 
enter seriously into his biography ; for the reason, that from his 
day to this, his name has been a by-word in all New England, 
and means as much as to say the greatest of liars. It is on 
account of the following anecdote that he is noticed. 

Sam Hide was a notorious cider-drinker as well as liar, and 
used to travel the country to and fro begging it from door to door. 
At one time he happened in a region of country where cider was 
very hard to be procured, either from its scarcity, or from Sam^s 
frequent visits. However, cider he was determined to have, if 
lying, in any shape or color, would gain it. Being not far from 
the house of an acquaintance, who he knew had cider, but he 

16 



242 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

knew, or was well satisfied, that, in the ordinary way of begging, 
he could not get it, he set his wits at work to lay a plan to insure 
it. This did not occupy him long. On arriving at the house 
of the gentleman, instead of asking for cider, he inquired for the 
man of the house, whom, on appearing, Sa??i requested to go aside 
with him, as he had something of importance to communicate to 
him. When they were by themselves, Sam told him he had tliat 
morning shot a fine deer, and that, if he would give him a crown, 
he would tell him where it was. The gentleman did not incline 
to do this, but offered half a crown. Finally, Sam said, as he 
had walked a great distance that morning, and was very dry, for 
a half a crown and a mug of cider he would tell him. This was 
agreed upon, and the price paid. Now Sam was required to 
point out the spot where the deer was to be found, which he did 
in this manner. He said to his friend, You know of such a meadow, 
describing it — Yes — You know a dig ash tree, with a big top by 
the little brook — Yes — Well, under that tree lies the deer. This 
was satisfactory, and Sajn departed. It is unnecessary to mention 
that the meadow was found, and the tree by the brook, but no 
deer. The duped man could hardly contain himself on consider- 
ing what he had been doing. To look after Sam for satisfaction 
would be worse than looking after the deer, so the farmer con- 
cluded to go home contented. Some years after, he happened to 
fall in with the Indian ; and he immediately began to rally him 
for deceiving him so ; and demanded back his money and pay 
for his cider and trouble. Why, said Sam, would you find fault if 
Indian told truth half the time ? — No — Well, says Sam, you find 
him meadow ? — Yes — You find him tree ? — Yes — What for 
then you find fault Sam Hide, when he told you two truth to one 
lie 1 The affair ended here. Sam heard no more from the 
farmer. 

This is but one of the numerous anecdotes of Sam Hide, which, 
could they be collected, would fill many pages. He died in 
Dedham, 5 January, 1732, at the great age of 105 years. He 
was a great jester, and passed for an uncommon wit. In all the 
wars against the Indians during his lifetime, he served the English 



MUNCHAUSEN 243 

faithfully, and had the name of a brave soldier. He had himself 
killed 19 of the enemy, and tried hard to make up the 20th, but 
was unable.^ 

We must take this narrative for what it is worth. Drake 
cites no authority, and one regrets to find that the Ded- 
ham archives contain no record of Sam Hyde's death, 
whether in 1732 or in any other year. The deer story is 
told of " one Tom Hyde, an Indian famous for his cun- 
ning," in Freeman Hunt's anonymous book of American 
Anecdotes, which was published in 1830. Hunt dates it 
" some years anterior to the independence of the United 
States," and says that the white man whom Hyde tricked 
was an innkeeper at Brookfield, Massachusetts.^ Drake's 
account of Sam's ambition to kill twenty of his foes seems 
to be adapted from a passage in Hubbard's Indian Wars. 
On July 3d, 1676, Major Talcott of Connecticut, who was 
pursuing King Philip in the Narragansett country, after 
surprising and defeating the enemy in a swamp, turned 
towards home, at the request of his Mohegan and Pequot 
allies. On the way his troops fell in with a party of sixty 
Indians, " all of whom they slew and took." One of the 
prisoners was " a young sprightly fellow," whom his cap- 
tors, the Mohegans, were allowed to put to death after their 
own savage fashion. " And indeed," writes Hubbard, " of 
all the Enemies that have been the Subjects of \kv& precedent 
discourse; This Villain did most deserve to become an 
Object of Justice and Severity ; For he boldly told them, 
that he had with his Gun dispatched nineteen English, and 
that he had charged it for the twentieth ; but not meeting 
with any of ours, and unwilling to loose 3. fair shot, he had let 

1 S. G. Drake, The Book of the Indians, 8th edition, Boston, 1841, Book 
i, pp. 21-22. 

2 American Anecdotes, Original and Select, by an American, Boston, 
1830, No. cccxiv, II, 109-10. 



244 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

fly at a Mohegin, and kill'd him ; with which, having made 
up his number, he told them he was fully satisfied." ^ 

The marvellous force of the Vermont Nimrod's gun 
can be paralleled by an authentic accident that happened 
in December, 1775, and is chronicled in Aaron Wright's 
Revolutionary Journal :- — 

John M'Murtry, in Capt. Chanabers' company, killed John 
Penn, by his rifle going off, when, he says, he did not know it 
was loaded. He was cleaning the lock, and put it on and primed 
it to see how she would 'fier.' It shot through a double par- 
tition of inch boards, and through one board of a berth, and 
went in at Penn's breast, and out at his back, and left its mark 
on the chimney. 

M'Murtry's firelock must have resembled the Revolu- 
tionary relic described in the Almanac for 1844: — 

AN OLD GUN. 

Zadock Thompson, Esq., of Halifax, Plymouth county, Mass., 
has now, or lately had, in his possession an old gun, which has 
descended to him from his ancestors, who came from Plymouth, 
in the third embarkation from England, in the month of May, 
1622. The gun was brought to this country at that time. It 
is of the following description : The whole length of the stock 
and barrel, seven feet four and a half inches — the length of the 
barrel, six feet one inch and a half — the size of the calibre 
will carry twelve balls to the pound ; the length of the face of the 
lock, ten inches ; the whole weight of the gun, twenty pounds 
and twelve ounces. At the commencement of Philip's war, the 
Indians, became so morose, the people, in the month of June, 

1 William Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians, Boston, 
1677, Postscript, pp. 9-10. 

2 Historical Magazine, July, 1862, VI, 21 T, cited by C. K. Bolton, The 
Private Soldier under Washington, New York, 1902, p. 113. 



MUNCHAUSEN 245 

fled for safety to the fort, which was built near what was called 
the Four Corners, in Middleboro'. The Indians would daily ap- 
pear on the southeasterly side of the river, and ascend what is 
called the hand rock, because there was the impression of a man's 
hand indented on it. There they would be in fair sight of the 
fort. Here, according to an antiquarian author, the Indians 
would show themselves to the people in the fort, and make their 
insulting gestures. The people became tired of daily insults. 
Lieut. Thompson the commander in chief, ordered Isaac How- 
land, a distinguished marksman, to take his gun and shoot the 
Indian, while he was insulting them. This he did, and gave the 
Indian a mortal wound. Filled with revenge for their wounded 
companion, the Indians took to the woods — running down the 
hill to the mill just below the fort, where the miller was at work ; 
he discovered them, and seized his coat and fled. Placing his 
coat and hat on the end of a stick, as he ran through the brush 
to the fort, and holding his coat over his head, the coat was per- 
forated by several balls. The Indians dragged their wounded 
companion two miles and three quarters, to the deserted house of 
Wm. Nelson, on the farm now occupied by Maj. Thomas Ben- 
nett. The Indian died that night and was buried with the ac- 
customed ceremonies, and the house was burnt. In the year 
182 1, nearly one hundred and fifty years after the Indian had 
been buried. Major Bennett, in ploughing the land, disinterred 
some of his bones, a pipe, a stone jug, and a knife, all much 
decayed by the slow but all destroying hand of time. Maj. B., 
a few years since, measured the distance from the fort to the 
rock where the Indian was, and made the astonishing distance of 
155 rods — nearly half a mile. 

Zadock Thompson's gun must have been as valuable as 
that with regard to which Israel Fearing, of Agawam, 
makes an elaborate entry in his account book about 
1750: — 

John Fearing bought a gun of Nehemia bese for 3 bushalls of 
corn and 3 bushalls of rye at six pounds twelve Shillings and If 



246 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

ye corn or rye fecheth more by the 18 day of Augest he is to 
give it and to pay for mending his gun If he Redeemeth her.^ 

William Priest, an English theatrical musician, who was 
in this country on a professional tour from 1793 to 1797, 
did not fail to learn that the provincials were good shots. 
" I have heard," he writes, " a hundred improbable stories 
relative to what has been done with the rifle by famous 
marksmen in America, such as shooting an apple from 
a child's head, &c. ; to which I could not give credit : but, 
I have no reason to doubt the following feat ; as it was 
actually performed before many hundred inhabitants of this 
borough [Philadelphia], and the adjacent country. — Dur- 
ing the late war, in the year 1775, a company of riflemen, 
formed from the back woodsmen of Virginia, were quar- 
tered here for some time : two of them alternately held a 
board only nine inches square between his knees, while 
his comrade fired a ball through it from a distance of one 
hundred paces ! The board is still preserved ; and I am 
assured by several who were present, that it was performed 
without any manner of deception." ^ 

There is no occasion to be very skeptical about this an- 
ecdote ; but one cannot help being amused at the testi- 
mony of the board. It reminds us of the old Greek jest 
of the pedant who, having a house for sale, carried about 
a single brick to exhibit to prospective purchasers as a 
specimen. The marksmanship is equalled, if not excelled, 
in a story of certain Virginia mountaineers in 1775. Five 
hundred recruits were needed, but many more came for- 
ward, and the commanding officer determined on a shoot- 
ing match. " A board one foot square bearing a chalk 
outline of a nose was nailed to a tree at a distance of 150 

1 W. R. Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay, Boston, 1888, p. 35. 

2 Travels in the United States of America, London, 1802, p. 59. The 
same story is told by Isaac Weld, Jr., Travels, 1799, pp. 67-8. 



MUNCHAUSEN 247 

yards. . . . Those who came nearest the mark with a 
single bullet were to be enlisted. The first forty or fifty 
men who shot cut the nose entirely out of the board." ^ 

But we must leave authentic history and return to the 
apocryphal Green Mountain saga which begins the chap- 
ter. It has a companion piece in an anecdote from Connect- 
icut, the hero of which is Prosper Leffingwell, a mighty 
hunter who lived at Killingly. It is given on the authority 
of Mr. Barber in his Connecticut Historical Collections: ^ — 

It were useless to attempt to detail all the events which marked 
the career of this famous sportsman. He was the terror of \hQ. foxes 
and rabbits for ten miles around. Many instances I might relate 
to illustrate the degree of skill to which he attained, but let one 
suffice. It is said that on one occasion, while returning home 
from hunting, he met three foxes advancing towards him " all in a 
row." As his gun was not loaded, he seized a stone, and directed 
it, as well as he was able, in a straight line towards their heads. 
Wonderful to tell, he brought them all down! He gazed a 
moment in astonishment. He found he had struck the first in 
the nose, the second in the hip, and the third in the forehead — 
all with the same stone ! The first was not quite dead, the 
second was badly lamed, but the third showed no signs of life 
whatever. While chasing the second, the first recovered and 
scampered away. Had he sprung upon them the moment he 
saw them fall, he might have secured the three. 

Hunting and fishing proverbially offer temptations to the 
skilful liar. Here is another story which is equal to that of 
the Vermont Nimrod. It is from the Almanac for 1836 : — 

" Did you ever hear of the scrape that I and uncle Zekiel had 
duckin on 't on the Connecticut?" asked Jonathan Timbertoes, 

1 C.K. Bolton, as above, p. 123 (from Ilarrower's Diary, in American 
Historical Review, October, 1900, p. 100). 

2 P. 432. 



248 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

while amusing his old Dutch hostess, who had agreed to enter- 
tain him under the roof of her log cottage, for and in considera- 
tion of a bran new tin milk-pan. " No, I never did ; do tell it," 
said Aunt Pumkins. " Well — you must know that I and uncle 
Zeke took it into our heads on Saturday's afternoon to go a 
gunning after ducks, in father's skiff; so in we got and sculled 
down the river ; a proper sight of ducks flew backwards and for- 
wards I tell ye — and by'm-by a few on 'em lit down by the mash, 
and went to feeding. I catched up my powder-horn to prime, 
and it slipped right out of my hand and sunk to the bottom of the 
river. The water was amazingly clear, and I could see it on the 
bottom. Now I could n't swim a jot, so sez I to uncle Zeke, 
you 're a pretty clever fellow, just let me take your powder-horn 
to prime. And don't you think, the stingy critter wouldn't. 
Well, says I, you 're a pretty good diver, 'un if you '11 dive and 
get it, I '11 give you primin. I thought he 'd leave his powder- 
horn; but he didn't, but stuck it in his pocket, and down he 
went — and there he staid" — here the old lady opened her 
eyes with wonder and surprise, and a pause of some minutes 
ensued, when Jonathan added, — "I looked down, and what do 
you think the critter was doin? " " Lord ! " exclaimed the old 
lady, " I 'm sure I don't know." "There he was," said our hero, 
" setting right on the bottom of the river, pouring the powder out 
of my horn into hizen." 

Washington's proverbial regard for the truth has sus- 
tained one severe attack, and that in connection with a 
subject which has become a regular resource for the 
comic " paragraphers " of our time, — the Mosquito. The 
English traveller Weld was certainly not much given to 
jesting, and, even if he had been, the delicious solemnity 
of the following observation would exonerate him from 
any such charge on the present occasion: — "General 
Washington told me, that he never was so much annoyed by 
musquitoes in any part of America as in Skenesborough,^ 
1 In New York, on Lake Champlain. 



MUNCHAUSEN 249 

for that they used to bite through the thickest boot." ^ 
Fortunately we are in a position to explain this astonish- 
ing observation. It could not escape the vigilance of 
President Dwight, who was a devotee of accuracy, and 
always zealous in supporting the credit of his country and 
its institutions : — 

A gentleman of great respectability, [he avers,] who was pres- 
ent when 'Gen. Washington made the observation referred to, 
told me, that he said, when describing these musquitoes to Mr. 
Weld, that they " bit through his stockings, above his boots." 
Our musquitoes have certainly a sharp tooth, and are very adroit 
at their business : but they have not been sufficiently disciplined, 
hitherto, to bite through the thickest boot.^ 

Probably Mr. Weld had had his own experiences with 
the American mosquito, and was ready to believe any- 
thing. For the benefit of other sufferers it may be worth 
while to reproduce a recipe from the Almanac for 1833, 
credited to the New York Evening Post: — 

TO DESTRO\ MUSQUETOES. 

Take a few hot coals on a shovel or chafingdish, and burn 
some brown sugar in your bedrooms and parlors, and you effectu- 
ally destroy the musquetoe for the night. The experiment has 
been often tried by several of our citizens, and found to produce 
the desired effect. 

The Sea Serpent of Nahant has been responsible for 
much annual mendacity. A sober British traveller made 
inquiries about him in 1820 from " a gentleman who dined 
with us there," and got a beautiful answer. The gentleman 
replied " that he had had the misfortune to see it three 

1 Isaac Weld, Jr., Travels through the States of North America, London, 
1799, p. 164. 

2 Travels in New-England and New-York, New Haven, 1822, IV, 229. 



250 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

days before; that he really considered it a misfortune, as 
no one would believe him ; and he could not, in sincerity, 
deny having seen it." ^ One is reminded of John Dunton's 
voyage to New England in 1685 and 1686, when, having 
viewed with amazement a swordfish and a thrasher, he 
" had the curiosity " to ask the sailors " if any of 'em had 
e'er seen a Mermaid or a Merman." Thereupon, if we 
may believe Dunton, " one of the most ancient of 'em told 
[him] , That he had formerly been us'd to Sail to the 
East Indies, and in those Voyages he had seen them 
frequently." '^ 

It will be appropriate to end this chapter with a couple 
of passages from the Almanac which may answer as a 
corrective to credulity : — 

Read newspapers, but consider, before you believe ; for com- 
mon report is often a great liar. (December, 1802.) 

This is a fine season for the farmer to enjoy the company of his 
friends. In these long evenings he can now have leisure to peep 
into the newspaper ; but read both sides of the question before 
you judge. Believe not every story you hear. Pin your faith 
upon no man's sleeve. (December, 1804.) 

^ Adam Hodgson, Letters from North America, London, 1824, H, 5. 
2 John Dunton's Letters from New England, ed. Whitmore, Prince 
Society, 1867, P- 40' 



T 



THE GREAT MOON HOAX 

HE second number of the Farmer's Almanack, that 
for 1794, contained a paragraph of much interest : — 



THE MOON. 
\_From a London pape)\'\ 

Mr. Herschell is now said, by the aid of his powerful glasses, to 
have reduced to a certainty, the opinion that the moon is in- 
habited. He has discovered land and water, and is enabled to 
distinguish between the green and barren mountainous spots on 
the former, which, as with us, are subdivided by the sea. Within 
these few days he has distinguished a large edifice, apparently of 
greater magnitude than St. Paul's ; and he is confident of shortly 
being able to give an account of the inhabitants. 

This extraordinary item of news, for which the " London 
paper " quoted by Mr. Thomas certainly had no good 
authority, was doubtless based on rumors about the elder 
Herschel's observation of the eclipse of the sun on Septem- 
ber 5th, 1793. Everybody knew that William Herschel was 
interested in the moon, and that the eclipse of the sun 
would afford him an opportunity to use his great telescope 
in studying lunar topography. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that the journalists of the day, though far less enter- 
prising and imaginative than those of our own time, got 
exaggerated ideas of what he might have seen, and took 
their chances. In the following year Herschel printed 
some of his results in the Philosophical Transactions, but 
these make no mention of edifices comparable to St. Paul's 
Cathedral. As a matter of fact, he discovered nothing 



252 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

more sensational than mountains and table-lands, but he 
got nearer to our satellite than anybody had ever got be- 
fore. Besides, it was no secret that he believed the moon 
to be inhabited, and the sun also, by beings whose organs 
" were adapted to the peculiar circumstances of those 
luminaries," — a doctrine which he taught publicly in 
1795, in a paper on the nature and constitution of the sun 
and fixed stars. ^ Though it does not appear that he had 
given formal expression to this opinion as early as 1793, 
still his views may well enough have reached the ears of 
the professional purveyors of news. It is not difficult, 
therefore, to account for the item which Mr. Thomas 
printed in his Almanac for 1794. At all events, this bit of 
scientific gossip shows that the world was ready, toward 
the close of the eighteenth century, for something which, 
in fact, did not come until forty years later, the Great 
Moon Hoax. 

In August and September 1835, the New York Sun 
amazed its readers, both lay and scientific, by publishing 
an account of " Great Astronomical Discoveries lately 
made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope." 
The information purported to come from a supplement to 
the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Of course, these dis- 
closures were received with incredulity and derision in 
some quarters, but the general public was inclined to 
believe in them. The circulation of the Sun increased 
enormously, and a pamphlet edition of the " Great Dis- 
coveries " numbering sixty thousand copies was soon 
taken up. The work was immediately translated into 
French and two editions were published in Paris. 

The marvellous story is introduced with considerable 
skill. After a flourish of trumpets, which strikes us as a 
trifle journalistic, but which was not unnatural under the 
supposed circumstances, the editor specifies with much 

1 Philosophical Transactions, LXXXV, 63-66. 



THE GREAT MOON HOAX 253 

sobriety the source of his " early and almost exclusive 
information." It appears that one Dr. Andrew Grant was 
a friend of the Edinburgh editor. This learned Scot had 
been a pupil of Sir William Herschel,and was now entirely 
in the confidence of Sir John, whose assistant he had been 
for some years. With unparalleled liberality Sir John 
Herschel had given Dr. Grant permission to disclose the 
main results of his recent observations in advance of their 
appearance in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and 
Dr. Grant had selected the Edinburgh Journal of Science as 
the most appropriate medium of communication. It was, 
of course, natural that the Doctor should covet for Edin- 
burgh the honor of first announcing these novelties to an 
astonished world. 

Sir John Herschel, so ran the story, in a casual inter- 
view with Sir David Brewster, some three years before, 
had deplored the fact that with telescopes of high magnify- 
ing power the object became proportionately indistinct. 
To remedy this defect he had suggested to Sir David the 
possibility of transfusing artificial light through the focal 
object of vision, and, finding that Brewster was ready to 
entertain the idea, he ventured to propose the use of the 
oxy-hydrogen microscope to make the focal image dis- 
tinct and even to magnify it. Sir David, we are informed, 
" sprung from his chair in an ecstasy of conviction, and 
leaping half way to the ceiling, exclaimed ' Thou art the 
man ! ' " After this everything was easy, though it took 
time. Dissatisfied with the size of his father's last tele- 
scope, which brought one within about forty miles of the 
moon, Herschel determined to construct a truly stupendous 
instrument, with an object glass twenty-four feet in 
diameter, "just six times the size of his venerable father's." 
The president of the Royal Society subscribed ^10,000, 
and the king, on being informed that the new instrument 
would be advantageous to navigation, agreed to make up 



2 54 THE OLD FARMERS ALMANACK 

the ;^70,ooo required, or any other sum that might be 
needed. 

The author of the ingenious fiction which we are dis- 
cussing shows some skill in his account of the manufacture 
of " this prodigious lens." The contract was awarded, it 
appears, to the firm of Hartly and Grant of Dumbarton, 
the junior partner being a brother of that Dr. Grant who 
plays so important a part in the narrative. The first cast- 
ing was unsuccessful, for there was a bad flaw within 
eighteen inches of the centre. The second attempt pro- 
duced a lens that was practically perfect. There were, to 
be sure, slight flaws near the edge, but they were of no 
account, since they would be covered by the rim that was 
to enclose the glass. The weight of the whole mass was 
nearly fifteen thousand pounds, — or to be accurate, as 
our hoaxer takes care to be, — 14,826 pounds, and its 
magnifying power was estimated at forty-two thousand 
times. 

It was decided to set up an observatory at the Cape of 
Good Hope on a plateau about thirty-five miles northeast 
of Cape Town. Several months were occupied in the 
construction of the building and the installation of the 
mechanism, which is described with a good imitation of 
popular scientific exposition, and on the loth of January, 
1835, the huge instrument was brought to bear upon the 
moon. 

The first view demonstrated the complete triumph of 
Herschel's experiment. Distinct formations of greenish 
brown basaltic rock, like those of Fingal's Cave at Staff"a, 
were visible, and in a few moments the eyes of the ob- 
servers were greeted with a sight of " the first organic 
production of nature, in a foreign world, ever revealed to 
the eyes of men." This was a poppy field of great extent, 
the flowers of which Dr. Grant declared to be " precisely 
similar to the rose-poppy of our sublunary cornfields." 



THE GREAT MOON HOAX 255 

The discovery was more exhilarating than it seemed, for 
it proved that the moon had an atmosphere so Hke our 
own that it would beyond question turn out to be inhabited. 
Our romancer, however, does not make the mistake of 
bringing in his main matter too early. He conducts the 
astronomers from one discovery to another in orderly 
succession. Now they see prodigious phenomena of lu- 
nar crystallization, — amethysts of a diluted claret color, 
sixty to ninety feet in height; now a herd of buffaloes, 
similar to those of the earth, and having a remarkable 
" fleshy appendage over the eyes, crossing the whole 
breadth of the forehead and united to the ears." The 
acute mind of Dr. Herschel at once perceived that this 
appendage was meant to protect the eyes of the animal 
from the extremes of light and darkness to which all who 
live on our side of the moon are periodically subjected. 
Bearded unicorns crossed the field of vision ; then gray 
pelicans, engaged in fishing ; soon after, strange spherical 
creatures, which rolled down the beach into the water and 
were lost to view. 

This was enough for one night, when taken together with 
discoveries in topography and mineralogy which need not 
be particularized, and with admirable self-command the 
deviser of the Moon Hoax made the next two nights 
cloudy so that observations were impracticable. What 
followed, however, atoned for such enforced idleness. 
Many species of trees and plants were not merely observed 
but even classified, and the zoological discoveries were of 
the most startling kind. In describing the biped beaver, 
indeed, the author seems to take an impish delight in en- 
dangering the credibility of his whole narrative. This 
creature, he informs us, has no tail, and walks upon two 
feet, bearing its young in its arms, and moving with an easy 
gliding motion. " Its huts are constructed better and 
higher than those of many tribes of human savages, and 



256 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

from the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them, there 
is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire." 
But this risky piece of romancing is cleverly counter- 
balanced by the mention of great flocks of genuine sheep 
" which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicester- 
shire, or the shambles of Leadenhall-market." " With 
the utmost scrutiny," continues Dr. Grant, " we could 
find no mark of distinction between these and those 
of our native soil. They had not even the appendage 
over the eyes, which I have described as common to 
lunar quadrupeds." 

Before long came the eagerly expected sight of human 
beings in the moon. The first group were not very prepos- 
sessing, and one might even doubt whether they were human 
beings at all, except for their gesticulations and the fact 
that they seemed to be talking with each other. These 
lunarians were only four feet high, they were covered with 
copper-colored hair, short and glossy, and had thin mem- 
branous wings, extending from the top of the shoulders to 
the calves of the legs. Their features were similar to those 
of the ourang-outang, but more intelligent, and in sym- 
metry of form they much surpassed their simian proto- 
types. A facetious member of the party, one Lieutenant 
Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, determined to make 
the best of the new race, declared that they " would look 
as well on a parade ground as some of the old cockney 
militia, — that is, if it were not for their long wings. " 

After observing these specimens of the man-bat, as it 
was decided to call the winged man just described, and 
noting several particulars so surprising that it was thought 
prudent to summon the civil and military authorities and 
" several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers " to 
look through the telescope and certify to the truth of Dr. 
Herschel's report, our investigators saw nothing more of 
human beings in the moon for some time ; but they were 



THF GREAT MOON HOAX 257 

favored with a view of an enormous mountain ridge, which 
was one soUd piece of crystallization, " brilHant as a piece 
of Derbyshire spar," extending for three hundred and forty 
miles. "We found," says Dr. Grant, "that wonder and 
astonishment, as excited by objects in this distant world, 
were but modes and attributes of ignorance, which should 
give place to elevated expectations, and to reverential con- 
fidence in the illimitable power of the Creator." 

Such reverent reflections were soon rewarded, and the 
rather disappointing impression left on the mind by the 
first sight of lunar inhabitants was effaced, by the discovery 
of a great equitriangular temple of polished sapphire. The 
roof was designed to represent a great sphere, round which 
rose a mass of violently agitated flames. This singular 
roof was flanked by cornices of a style of architecture with 
which neither Dr. Grant, Dr. Herschel, nor Lieut. Drum- 
mond was familiar. The temple was open on every side, 
but contained no seats or altars, or furniture of any kind. 
Human beings were never seen in the temples, and the 
Doctor does not venture to decide whether they were 
simple monuments or the deserted fanes of past ages. 

Not very far from the first of these temples more inhabit- 
ants were discovered, who were " in every respect an im- 
proved variety of the race." They were taller and not so 
dark, and they had better manners. When they came 
into view, — and, indeed, for a considerable portion of 
the time during which they were under the lens, — they 
were engaged in eating fruit; and it was with much satis- 
faction that Dr. Grant noticed symptoms of politeness in 
their conduct. Occasionally some member of a group 
would pick out a particularly fine specimen and throw it 
" archwise " to some friend who had already exhausted the 
supply that was near him. Carnivorous animals seemed 
to be unknown, and this, together with the " universal state 
of amity among all classes of lunar creatures" gave Dr. 

17 



258 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Grant and his companions what he dehcately describes as 
the " most refined pleasure." 

The same night an unfortunate accident happened, which 
came near putting an end to all discoveries for the time 
being. The monstrous lens, which, it should be noticed, 
was not enclosed in a tube as in the case of most tele- 
scopes, had been unaccountably left in such a position 
that, while the astronomers were asleep, it focussed the 
sun's rays with terrific force. The fire thus kindled was 
so fierce as to vitrify the plaster of the observatory walls, 
but it was fortunately extinguished before any permanent 
damage had been done. By the time the necessary re- 
pairs had been effected, the moon was no longer visible, 
and for a month Dr. Herschel gave his attention to Saturn 
and the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. One 
night in March, however, while Herschel was engrossed in 
cataloguing the new stars which he had discovered, Dr. 
Grant, with other members of the party, took another look 
at the moon. Apparently the imagination of the writer 
had been exhausted, for nothing strikingly new appeared. 
As a fitting climax, however, to the details which we have 
been tracing, a new species of the man-bat crossed the 
field of vision; and with these the account printed in the 
New York Sun closes, for, as the editor ingenuously re- 
marks, " the forty pages of illustrative and mathematical 
notes " which followed in the Edinburgh Journal " would 
greatly enhance the price of the reprint," without com- 
mensurably adding to its general interest. The new species 
of the man-bat was infinitely more beautiful, though not 
taller, than the last specimens examined. " They ap- 
peared," says Dr. Grant, " scarcely less lovely than the 
general representations of angels by the more imagina- 
tive schools of painters." It seems also that they were 
far advanced in civilization, and that their works of art 
were incredibly skilful. But all this, he adds, must be left 



THE GREAT MOON HOAX 259 

to be treated in " Dr. Herschel's authenticated natural 
history" of the Moon. 

The Moon Hoax was the work of Richard Adams 
Locke, an able but erratic reporter. In England, where 
the inventive powers of the American newspaper man were 
not properly appreciated, some persons fancied that the 
story was of French origin ; ^ but the evidence of Benja- 
min H. Day, the founder of the Sun, is conclusive. In 
1883, when the Sun was fifty years old, Mr. Day was in- 
terviewed, and his recollections were printed in the anni- 
versary number (September 3d, 1883). Though advanced 
in years, he remembered the circumstances perfectly. He 
paid Locke between five and six hundred dollars for the 
article, and it appears that the hoaxer " made something 
in addition by selling lithographs of the scenery and ani- 
mals in the moon." The workmanship of the Moon Hoax 
is pretty skilful. Many of the scientific details are slurred 
over on the ground that they would not be of general in- 
terest, or because it would be improper for the writer to 
anticipate the report which Herschel intended to make to 
the Royal Society. It is only with regard to the construc- 
tion of the telescope by means of which these stupendous 
discoveries were made, that the author ventures to be at 
all explicit, and here, though his description is well calcu- 
lated to impress his lay readers, no astronomer or physi- 
cist could be for a moment deceived. Nevertheless, if it 
is permitted to correct this too hasty remark, some as- 
tronomers were deceived. Mr. Day remembered that a 
deputation from a certain college " came to the office and 
requested to see the original copy of the magazine article." 
" I pretended," he continues, " to be vastly indignant that 
they should doubt our word. ' I suppose the magazine is 
somewhere upstairs,' said I, ' but I consider it almost an 

1 See R. A. Proctor, Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, London, 1878, 
pp. 241 ff. 



26o THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

insult that you should ask to see it' They went back . . . 
apparently perfectly satisfied." Doubtless such scientific 
men as allowed their enthusiasm to get the better of their 
judgment detected flaws in the reasoning, and errors in 
the form of statement, but supposed they might be due to 
haste or editorial misunderstanding. Outside of strictly 
scientific circles the Hoax made a profound impression. 
Miss Martineau, who was in America at the time, de- 
scribes the excitement that it caused, but cautions her 
English readers against drawing a wrong inference as to 
the average of common sense and enlightenment in this 
country. She writes : — 

I happened to be going the round of several Massachusetts 
villages when the marvellous account of Sir John Herschel's dis- 
coveries in the moon was sent abroad. The sensation it excited 
was wonderful. As it professed to be a republication from the 
Edinburgh Journal of Science, it was some time before many 
persons, except professors of natural philosophy, thought of 
doubting its truth. The lady of such a professor, on being ques- 
tioned by a company of ladies as to her husband's emotions at 
the prospect of such an enlargement of the field of science, ex- 
cited a strong feeling of displeasure against herself. She could 
not say that he believed it, and would gladly have said noth- 
ing about it : but her inquisitive companions first cross-examined 
her, and then were angry at her scepticism. A story is going, 
told by some friends of Sir John Herschel, (but whether in 
earnest or in the spirit of the moon story I cannot tell,) that 
the astronomer has received at the Cape, a letter from a large 
number of Baptist clergymen of the United States, congratula- 
ting him on his discovery, informing him that it had been the 
occasion of much edifying preaching and of prayer-meetings for 
the benefit of brethren in the newly explored regions ; and be- 
seeching him to inform his correspondents whether science 
affords any prospects of a method of conveying the Gospel to 
residents in the moon. However it may be with this story, my 



THE GREAT MOON HOAX 26 1 

experience of the question with regard to the other, *' Do you not 
beUeve it? " was very extensive. 

In the midst of our amusement at credulity like this, we must 
remember that the real discoveries of science are likely to be 
more faithfully and more extensively made known in the villages 
of the United States, than in any others in the world. The 
moon hoax, if advantageously put forth, would have been believed 
by a much larger proportion of any other nation than it was 
by the Americans ; and they are travelling far faster than any 
other people beyond the reach of such deception. Their com- 
mon and high schools, their Lyceums and cheap colleges, are 
exciting and feeding thousands of minds, which in England would 
never get beyond the loom or the plough-tail. If few are very 
learned in the villages of Massachusetts, still fewer are very ig- 
norant : and all have the power and the will to invite the learning 
of the towns among them, and to remunerate its administration 
of knowledge.^ 

After seventy years, the Great Moon Hoax is still 
famous in the annals of popular delusions, though the 
details of the extraordinary story have long ago faded 
from general recollection. Now and then there is a feeble 
attempt at something similar. Thus in 1897 a few New 
Englanders were taken in by a newspaper report that the 
planet Venus " was an electric light attached to a balloon 
sent up from Syracuse, and hauled down slowly every 
night" about nine o'clock.^ But this stroke of fancy, 
audacious as it was, can bear no comparison with Sir John 
Herschel's experiences at the Cape of Good Hope. 

1 Retrospect of Western Travel, London, 1838, II, 22-24. 

2 D. P. Todd, A New Astronomy, New York, [1897,] p. 316. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND 
BEAST 

IT is a prevalent misconception to think that our Puritan 
ancestors were addicted to making themselves uncom- 
fortable. No doubt they were zealous for decency 
and order, and more or less rigorous in their interpretation 
of conduct ; but it never occurred to them that needless 
privation was a good thing. The body, to be sure, was 
more than meat; but nobody supposed that this principle 
involved the corollary of starving oneself Thirst, too, 
they held should be satisfied, within reasonable bounds. 
An inn or ordinary, they believed, was as requisite to a 
well-organized community as a school, — and that not 
merely for the accommodation of travellers, but also to 
serve the people of the neighborhood. Accordingly, the 
early records abound in licenses to draw beer, or beer and 
wine, and innholding was recognized as one of the most 
reputable of occupations. Neglect to provide an ordinary 
made a town liable to fine. Thus, in 1669, the town of 
Newbury, Massachusetts, was presented for such derelic- 
tion, and was enjoined to supply the deficiency before the 
next March court under penalty of five pounds.^ When 
an inn had once been opened, the paternal government 
kept a sharp eye on abuses and visited every infraction of 
discipline with speedy punishment. 

After the Revolution, and at about the time when the 
Farmer's Almanack was winning its place as the New 
Englander's favorite manual of secular faith and practice, 

1 J. J. Currier, Ould Newbury, Boston, 1896, p. 177. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 263 

this country was much resorted to by European travellers, 
who, like their successors nowadays, were prone to print 
their impressions in a book. Such visitors were astonished 
to learn that innkeepers often bore military titles and were 
leading men in the community. John Davis, the facetious 
pedagogue,^ has some remarks on this point, apropos of a 
boarding-house in New York, " agreeably situated in 
Cherry-street " : — 

Major Howe, after carrying arms through the revolutionary war, 
instead of reposing upon the laurels he had acquired, was com- 
pelled to open a boarding-house in New- York, for the mainte- 
nance of his wife and children. He was a member of the 
Cincinnati, and not a little proud of his Eagle. But I thought the 
motto to his badge of Omnia reliquit servare Rempublicani, was 
not very appropriate ; for it is notorious that few Americans had 
much to leave when they accepted commissions in the army. 
Victor ad aratruni redit would have been better.^ 

We may pass over Davis's jibe, for it is not ill-natured ; 
he was a penniless itinerant himself 

Smyth, who visited America soon after the Revolution, 
met with a host of even higher rank at the " ordinary, inn, 
or tavern " at Bute County Court-House, North Carolina, 
where he had an excellent dinner. This was no less a per- 
sonage than General Jethro Sumner, who had played a 
conspicuous part in the war. Smyth remarks : — 

He is a man of a person lusty, and rather handsome, with an 
easy and genteel address : nis marriage with a young woman of 
a good family, with whom he received a handsome fortune ; his 
being a captain of provincials last war ; but above all his violent 
principles, and keeping an inn at the court-house (which is 
scarcely thought a mean occupation here), singular as the latter 

1 See p. 142, above. 

2 Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States, during 1798, 
1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802, London, 1803, p. 22. 



264 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

circumstance may appear, contributed more to his appointment 
and promotion in the American army, than any other merit. For 
it is a fact, that more than one third of their general officers have 
been inn-keepers, and have been chiefly indebted to that circum- 
stance for such rank. Because by that public, but inferior station, 
their principles and persons became more generally known ; and 
by the mixture and variety of company they conversed with, in 
the way of their business, their ideas and their ambitious views 
were more excited and extended than the generality of the honest 
and respectable planters, who remained in peace at their homes.^ 

In 1 77 1 John Adams found that landlord Pease, of 
Enfield, Connecticut, " was the great man of the town ; 
their representative, &c. as well as tavern-keeper, and just 
returned from the General Assembly at Hartford." ^ 

Another tavern-keeper of position was Dr. Nathaniel 
Ames of Dedham, Massachusetts, equally celebrated for 
his drugs, his inn, and his almanac. The almanac was a 
good medium for the advertisement of the tavern. He 
announced the opening of his house of entertainment in 
his issue for 175 1 : — 

Advertisement. 

CT^HESE are to signify to all Persons that travel the great 
•*• Post-Road South- West from Boston, That I keep a House of 
Publick Entertainment Eleven Miles from Boston, at the Sign of 
the SUN. If they wa?it Refreshment, and see Cause to be my 
Guests, they shall be well entertained at a reasonable Rate, 

N. Ames. 

For some reason the " Sign of the SUN " did not get 
into position promptly. Hence in 1752 Dr. Ames returned 
to the subject as follows : — 

1 J. F. D. Smyth, Tour in the United States, London, 1784, I, 114-15- 

2 Diary, June 7, 177 1, Works, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston, 1S50, II, 271. 



Of the EcUpfes for 175 1, 

THERE will be Foar EcHpfes this Yeat) two of 
the Sun> and alfo as many of the Moon,, in 
the following Order, viz. 

I. The Firft will be of the Si/N, May the ijlh 
at Eight In the Evening, inviHbje. 

If. The Second is of the Moon> May the 
2$th, vifible, calcolated as followi, «#r. 

*. r>$r\ 

Beginning, • •» 7 20 1 

Middle, - . - 9 4 V Evening, 

End, - - - ro 46 j 

Durstlon, - - 3 26} 

Dlgit3 cclipfed, 10 25 
III. The Third will be of the Sun, Novmber 
the 3d, at Eight at Night, invifible. 

IV The Fourth and laft is of ibc Mooir, the 
2111 Day of Novembert partly vifiblc j ai the Sun's 
Setting the Moon will rife two Thirds eclipfed ; 
bat by that Time the Day-light is |;one fo zs to 
have a good Profpe^ of the Moon, the Eclipfe 
will end. 



?J^> 



Advertifement. 

CT'HB S E are tofignify to all Per fans that tr :i;el 
'- the great Pcfi-Road South-lVefi from Bs^cn, 
That I keep a H^ufe of Puhlick Enttrtaimtent 
Eleven Miles from Bofton, at the Srga of tbe SUN. 
If they want Refrejhment^ and fee Caufe to he my 
Guefis^ theyfiail be weti entertained ct a reaftmable 
Rate, 






ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 265 

The Affairs of my House are of a Publick Nature, and therefore 
I hope may be mentioned here without offence to my Reader : 
The Sign I advertised last Year by Reason of some httle Disap- 
pointments is not put up, but the Thing intended to be signified 
by it is to be had according to said Advertisement. And I beg 
Leave further to add, that if any with a View of Gain to them- 
selves, or Advantage to their Friends, have reported Things of 
my House in contradiction to the aforesaid Advertisement, I would 
only have those whom they would influence consider, that where 
the Narrator is not honest, is not an Eye or Ear-Witness, can't 
trace his Story to the original, has it only by Hear-say, a thou- 
sand such Witnesses are not sufficient to hang a Dog : & I hope 
no Gentleman that travels the Road will have his Mind bias'd 
against my House by such idle Reports.^ 

It is pleasant to know that the doctor's vigorous defence 
was effectual and that the Sun Tavern enjoyed great and 
long-continued prosperity. 

The manners of the landlord were often a subject of 
comment. Foreigners were now and then shocked or 
offended at a lack of that subserviency which they had 
always associated with innkeepers in their own country, 
but the more sensible among them soon came to under- 
stand the reason and adapted themselves to the situation. 
Adam Hodgson, writing of Virginia in 1820, gives a good 
idea of the condition of things : — 

Every ten or fifteen miles you come either to a little village, 
composed of a few frame houses, with an extensive substantial 
house, whose respectable appearance, rather than any sign, de- 
monstrates it to be a tavern, (as the inns are called,) or to a 
single house appropriated to that purpose, and standing alone in 
the woods. At these taverns you are accosted, often with an 
easy civility, sometimes with a repulsive frigidity, by a landlord 
who appears perfectly indifferent whether or not you take any- 

1 These advertisements are quoted by Edward Field, The Colonial Tav- 
ern, Providence, 1897, pp. 103-5 ! t'^^y ^■'^ given here from the originals. 



266 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

thing for the good of the house. If, however, you intimate an 
intention to take some refreshment, a most plentiful repast is, in 
due time, set before you, consisting of beef-steaks, fowls, turkies, 
ham, partridges, eggs, and if near the coast, fish and oysters, 
with a great variety of hot bread, both of wheat flour and Indian- 
corn, the latter of which is prepared in many ways, and is very 
good. The landlord usually comes in to converse with you, and 
to make one of the party ; and as one cannot have a private 
room, I do not find his company disagreeable. He is, in general, 
well informed and well behaved, and the independence of manner 
which has often been remarked upon, I rather like than other- 
wise, when it is not assumed or obtrusive, but appears to arise 
naturally from easy circumstances, and a consciousness that, both 
with respect to situation and intelligence, he is at least on a level 
with the generality of his visitors. At first I was a little sur- 
prised, on enquiring where the stage stopped to breakfast, to be 
told, at Major Todd's ; — to dine ? At Col. Brown's — but I am 
now becoming familiar with these phenomena of civil and politi- 
cal equality, and wish to communicate my first impressions before 
they fade away.^ 

It may be interesting to compare this passage with 
Fynes Morison's appreciative account of an English inn in 
the early seventeenth century : — 

I haue heard some Germans complaine of the English Innes, 
by the high way, as well for dearenesse, as for that they had onely 
roasted meates : But these Germans landing at Grauesend, per- 
haps were iniured by those knaues, that flocke thither onely to 
deceiue strangers, and vse Englishmen no better, and after went 
from thence to London, and were there entertained by some 
ordinary Hosts of strangers, returning home little acquainted 
with English customes. But if these strangers had knovvne the 
English tongue, or had had an honest guide in their iournies, and 
had knowne to Hue at Rome after the Roman fashion, (which 
they seldome doe, vsing rather Dutch Innes and companions), 
1 Letters from North America, London, 1824, I, 20-22. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 26/ 

surely they should haue found, that the World affoords not such 
Innes as England hath, either for good and cheape entertaine- 
ment after the Guests owne pleasure, or for humble attendance 
on passengers, yea, euen in very poore Villages, where if Curcu- 
lio of Plautus, should see the thatched houses, he would fall into 
a fainting of his spirits, but if he should smell the variety of meates, 
his starueling looke would be much cheared : For assoone as a 
passenger comes to an Inne, the seruants run to him, and one 
takes his Horse and walkes him till he be cold, then rubs him, 
and giues him meate, yet I must say that they are not much to 
be trusted in this last point, without the eye of the Master or his 
Seruant, to ouersee them. Another seruant giues the passenger 
his priuate chamber, and kindles his fier, the third puis of his 
bootes, and makes them cleane. Then the Host or Hostesse 
visits him, and if he will eate with the Host, or at a common 
Table with others, his meale will cost him sixe pence, or in some 
places but foure pence, (yet this course is lesse honourable, and 
not vsed by Gentlemen) : but if he will eate in his chamber, he 
commands what meate he will according to his appetite, and as 
much as he thinkes fit for him and his company, yea, the kitchin 
is open to him, to command the meat to be dressed as he best 
likes ; and when he sits at Table, the Host or Hostesse will 
accompany him, or if they haue many Guests, will at least visit 
him, taking it for curtesie to be bid sit downe : while he eates, if 
he haue company especially, he shall be offred musicke, which he 
may freely take or refuse, and if he be solitary, the Musitians will 
giue him the good day with musicke in the morning. It is the 
custome and no way disgracefull to set vp part of supper for his 
breakefast : In the euening or in the morning after breakefast, 
(for the common sort vse not to dine, but ride from breakefast to 
supper time, yet comming early to the Inne for better resting of 
their Horses) he shall haue a reckoning in writing, and if it seeme 
vnreasonable, the Host will satisfie him, either for the due price, 
or by abating part, especially if the seruant deceiue him any way, 
which one of experience will soone find. ... A Gentleman and 
his Man shall spend as much, as if he were accompanied with 



268 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

another Gentleman and his Man, and if Gentlemen will in such 
sort ioyne together, to eate at one Table, the expences will be 
much diminished. Lastly, a Man cannot more freely command 
at home in his owne House, then hee may doe in his Inne, and 
at parting if he giue some few pence to the Chamberlin & Ostler, 
they wish him a happy iourney.^ 

Of course travellers had to submit to a good deal of 
questioning. The curiosity of Americans was a regular 
subject for comment among foreigners in the eighteenth 
and the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed the 
inquisitive Yankee has become a stock figure in our own 
novels and plays. Patrick M'Robert, who visited New 
England in 1774, is mildly jocose. The people, he says, 
" have been great adventurers in trade, and generally suc- 
cessful ; they are very inquisitive, want to know every cir- 
cumstance relating to any stranger that comes amongst 
them, so that a traveller lately in that country had been so 
pestered with their idle queries, that, as soon as he entered 
a tavern, he used to begin and tell them he was such a 
one, telling his name, travelling to Boston, born in North 
Britain, aged about thirty, unmarried, prayed them not to 
trouble him with more questions but get him something 
to eat: this generally had the desired effect."^ This is 
an old story, which turns up again and again in slightly 
variant forms, Isaac Candler, who wrote some fifty 
years later, took the matter rather more seriously, in the 
spirit of a social investigator, and came to a very definite 
conclusion : — 

Concerning one colloquial fault with which they have often 
been accused, namely, that of impertinent inquisitiveness, I have 

1 An Itinerary written by Fynes Moryson, Gent, London, 1617, Part III, 
Chap. 3, p. 151. 

2 Tour through Part of the North Provinces of America, Edinburgh, 
1776, p. 25. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 269 

to remark, that it applies principally and almost entirely to the 
lower and middling classes in remote situations and small vil- 
lages. I met with only two persons of the upper class whose 
enquiries respecting myself were troublesome or offensive, and 
one of these was a person whom I judged to have mixed very 
little in society, I met him at a tavern at Schenectady ; and to 
show how much his inquisitiveness was disapproved by others, I 
must add, that as soon as he had left the room, another gentle- 
man . . . apologised for his rudeness, and hoped 1 should not 
judge of the citizens generally by him ; a remark elicited from 
my having stated that I had been a short time only in the 
country.^ 

A piece of incidental evidence of a rather amusing cast 
is the following advertisement, which appeared in a Ver- 
mont newspaper, the Federal Galaxy of Brattleboro', 
July 15, 1799: — 

FOUND. 

Six Bars of Iron, secreted beneath the surface of the ground, 
within the enclosures of the subscriber. The owner is requested 
to tell how it came there, to prove property, pay charges, and 
take it away. 

Joel W. Bliss. 

Brattleboro', July 13, 1799. 

Mr. Bliss, we notice, is not content with the usual " prov- 
ing property and paying for this advertisement." He 
wants to know how the iron bars came to be buried in his 
lot. After all, his curiosity is justifiable, for the circum- 
stances were undeniably peculiar. 

John Adams's picture of his landlord and landlady at 
Ipswich is deservedly celebrated : — 

Landlord and landlady are some of the grandest people alive ; 
landlady is the great-granddaughter of Governor Endicott and 

1 A Summary View of America. By an Englishman. London, 1824, 
pp. 482-3. 



270 THE OLD FARMER'S ALiL\NACK 

had all the great notions of high family that you find in Winslows, 
Hutchinsons, Quincys, Saltonstalls, Chandlers, Leonards, Otises, 
and as you might find with more propriety in the Winthrops. Yet 
she is cautious and modest about discovering it. . . . As to land- 
lord, he is as happy and as big, as proud, as conceited, as any 
nobleman in England ; always calm and good-natured and lazy ; 
but the contemplation of his farm and his sons and his house 
and pasture and cows, his sound judgment, as he thinks, and his 
great holiness, as well as that of his wife, keep him as erect in 
his thoughts as a noble or a prince. Indeed, the more I consider 
of mankind, the more I see that every man seriously and in his 
conscience believes himself the wisest, brightest, best, happiest, 
&c. of all mankind.^ 

At most inns in the country the domestic service was 
performed by the landlord's daughters, with or without 
the assistance of hired " help " from the neighborhood. 
Travellers often speak appreciatively of the simple cour- 
tesy and modest demeanor of their attendants. In 1789 
Washington wrote as follows to the proprietor of Taft's 
inn, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts, where he had lodged on 
his return from his New England progress: — 

Hartford, S November, 17S9. 
Sir — Being informed that you have given my name to one of 
your sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, 
and being moreover very much pleased with the modest and in- 
nocent looks of your two daughters. Patty and Polly, I do for 
these reasons send each of these girls a piece of chintz ; and 
to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who 
waited more upon us than Polly did, I send five guineas, with 
which she may buy herself any little ornaments she may want, or 
she may dispose of them in any other manner more agreeable 
to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to have it 
talked of, or even to its being known, the less there is said about 

1 Diary, June 22, 1771, Works, ed. C. F. Adams, II, 282. 



ENTERTAINiVlENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 2/1 

it the better you will please me ; but, that I may be sure the 
chintz and money have got safe to hand, let Patty, who I dare 
say is equal to it, write me a line informing me thereof, directed 
to " The President of the United States at New York." I wish 
you and your family well, and am your humble servant, 

GEO. WASHINGTON.! 

President Dwight, writing about 1820, avers that the 
inns of New England had deteriorated, and to prove his 
point he gives a most attractive description of a house of 
the old style, leaving his readers to contrast it with those 
with which they were themselves acquainted : — 

The best old fashioned New-England inns were superior to 
any of the modern ones which I have seen. They were at less 
pains to furnish a great variety of food. Yet the variety was 
ample. The food was always of the best quality ; the beds were 
excellent ; the house and all its appendages were in the highest 
degree clean and neat ; the cookery was remarkably good ; 
and the stable was not less hospitable than the house. The 
family in the meantime were possessed of principle, and re- 
ceived you with the kindness and attention of friends. Your 
baggage was as safe as in your own house. If you were sick, 
you were nursed and befriended as in your own family. No 
tavern-haunters, gamblers or loungers were admitted, any more 
than in a well ordered private habitation ; and as little noise was 
ajlowed. 

There was less bustle, less parade, less appearance of doing 
much to gratify your wishes, than at the reputable modern inns ; 
but much more actually done, and much more comfort and 
enjoyment. In a word, you found in these inns the pleasures of 
an excellent private house. To finish the story, your bills were 
always equitable, calculated on what you ought to pay, and not 
upon the scheme of getting the most which extortion might 
think proper to demand."^ 

! Writings, ed. Sparks, Boston, 1836, X, 48, note. 

2 Travels in New-England and New-York, 1822, IV, 26-12. 



2/2 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

The learned and discriminating college President, it will 
be noticed, declares that in the old days " tavern-haunting " 
was not tolerated, but he implies that times have changed 
for the worse. This was but too true. Idle resort to the 
public house was a prevalent vice in New England country 
towns in the early part of the nineteenth century. Every 
village had its tavern, or at least its store where rum could 
be bought as well as other " East and West India goods 
and groceries," and many had two or three. As a censor 
of manners and morals, Mr. Thomas felt bound to warn 
his fellow-citizens not to waste their time and money, and 
the Farmer's Calendar affords us many lively pictures of 
the shiftless husbandman who lets his farm go to waste 
while he is " turning the double corner." Thus in July, 
1812: — 

" There, there ! run, John, the hogs are in the cornfield ; " 
cried old lady Lookout, as she stood slipshod over the cheese- 
tub. " I told your father, John, that this would be the case ; 
but he had rather go day after day up to 'Squire Plunket's to 
drink grog and swap horses, than to be at a little pains to stop 
the gap in the wall, by which he might prevent the destruction of 
our beautiful cornfield ; and then, Jonny, you know if we have 
corn to sell we can afford to rig up a little and go and see your 
aunt Winnypucker's folks." " Aye, aye, mother, let us mind the 
main chance, as our minister told us the other day. You look to 
your cheese-tubs, I '11 see to the hogs, and with a little good luck, 
by jinks, mother, we may be able to hold up our heads yet." 

Old lady Lookout and her energetic son were no doubt 
able to keep things going despite the tippling propensities 
of the head of the house ; and so, let us hope, was the 
heroine of the following sketch, which may be found in 
the Farmer's Calendar for April, 1812: — 

" Heigh-ho-hum ! Here John, take the jug and run down to 
'Squire Plunket's and get a quart of new rum. Tell him to put 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 273 

it down with the rest and I '11 pay him in rye, as I told him. 
Come, Eunice, hang on the tea-kettle and let us have some sling 
when John gets baek. — Wife, how long before breakfast?" 
"Alas, husband, where is this to end? Our farm is mortgaged, 
you know; the mare and colt both attached, last week the oxen 
were sold ; and yesterday the blue heifer was driven away ; next 
goes our grain and at last, I suppose, I must give up my wedding 
suit, and all for sling ! A plague on the shopkeepers — I wish 
there was not a glass of rum in the universe ! Now, husband, if 
you will only spruce round a little, like other men, and attend to 
business, I have no doubt but we can get along. See Capt. 
Sprightly, he is up early and late, engaged in business. He lets 
no moment pass unimproved. See even now, while we are but 
just out of bed, he has been for this hour with his boys in the 
field ! Why can't we be as earnest, and as cheerful, and as 
prosperous as they? Come, come, hus, let's make an efifort." 

In April, 1805, there is a humorous picture of confusion 
on the farm, with a pretty plain moral annexed. Inci- 
dentally the nagging wife comes in for a bit of wholesome 
satire : — 

"/ told you so^^ says Dorothy — "/ told you so." "John, 
Where's the plough?" " I ha'nt seen it since last fall." "Bill, 
what's become of our hoes?" "We left them in the field, 
father." " / told you so," says Dorothy ; " dut you would be at 
the tavern, and let the boys go a fishing." At length the tools are 
found, carefully laid up in the cider-mill garret, where the wife 
had desired Mr. Simpkins' man to place them. Who would not 
choose to avoid the dangerous habit of tavern haunting, to stay 
at home and keep himself and family in business, rather than 
to be perpetually tormented with that mortifying cant, "/ told 
you so? " 

A more solemn, but not more effective admonition, oc- 
curs in the Calendar for February, 1816: — 

18 



2/4 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Take care that you do not visit the grog-shop as an idler. If 
you have business there, do it and away. You may contract a 
habit of lounging, and next a habit of sipping, and then, my 
friend, you are gone. " Oh, that men should put an enemy in 
their mouths, to steal away their brains," " Every inordinate cup 
is unblest, and the ingredient is a devil." 

" Our good or bad fortune depends greatly on the choice we 
make of our friends." I never knew Sir Richard Rum's friend- 
ship worth preserving. He is warm and very cordial at first, but 
he is sure to lead you into difficulty in the end. 

Note the two passages from Shakspere, whom the Old 
Farmer was studying diligently " about this time." In 
1817 he begins almost every column of the Farmer's 
Calendar with similar quotations, — sometimes rather 
amusingly combined, as in the exordium to his January 
counsels : — 

" Most potent, grave, and reverend Seigniors, my very noble 
and approved good masters." " Rude I am in speech ; and 
little of this great world can I speak ; yet grace and remembrance 
be unto you all." Economy, economy, neighbor Dash, is the 
main thing these hard times. Let it be your companion all 
about the house and in the barn. 

An agricultural application of the boatswain's orders in 
The Tempest is appropriately assigned to the Farmer's 
Calendar for March : — 

" Hey, my hearts, cheerly, my hearts ; yare, yare ; take in the 
topsail; bend to the master's whistle ! " Ay, to be sure, attend 
to the master's whistle, not only at sea, but ye ' land-lubbers ' 
also ; " yare, lower, lower and bring her to try with main course ! " 
Do you think, neighbour Mopus, that none but a sailor can be 
yare ? Ay, my friend, that won't do ; wide-a-wake is the word 
for us on shore, and let us have no milk-sops. Now the storm 
is over, see that all your rigging and tackle is adjusted. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 275 

As time went on, the Old Farmer's denunciations of 
tavern-haunting became more and more vigorous, for 
there can be no doubt that the drinking habit was in- 
creasing in New England. The conditions were approach- 
ing that made the temperance reform of the second and 
third decade of the last century so imperative. In July, 
1 821, we have an earnest, though highly humorous, 
expostulation : — 

" How we perspire ! " said the beef-steak to the gridiron. 
Yes, Capt. Blowzy, it 's rather warm ; but don't let us jump out of 
the frying-pan into the fire, by pouring down too much hot rum 
into our throats. I went up to Esq. Snozzle's store the other 
day for a half bushel of salt. It was just at night, after I had 
cocked up what Httle hay I had out. " By my troth," said I, 
as I entered the shop door, "this i?, xa\hex against the parish.'^ 
For there sat Tom Toozle and Ben Boozle ; Bob Raikins and 
Jo Jakins, with 6 or 8 more, tunimg the double corner, as they call 
it ; or, to use a military term, firing off sHng and punch from 
right to left ; and, could you believe it, 'tis true as Hfe, I there 
saw two of my good, honest and most reputable fellow-towns- 
men snug among them ; old Capt. Cleverly and Mr. David 
Easyman ! I was touched to the very soul ; and looking in- 
dignantly at them, I cried, Cofne out from among them. 

Among the entertainments which country innkeepers 
provided to amuse their guests and stimulate transient 
custom, particularly from the neighborhood itself, the 
turkey-shooting must not be forgotten. Kendall, another 
tourist, was present at an affair of this kind in Vermont : — 

On these occasions the taverner fastens one turkey after 
another to a post, and those who shoot at it, take aim at a given 
distance. The shooters pay four pence half-penny currency, or the 
sixteenth part of a dollar for each shot, and half a dollar, or the 
price of eight shots, is the ordinary price of a turkey. The bird 



276 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

sometimes falls at the first shot, but sometimes sustains no less 
than thirty-six ; and, on the average, is hit one time in eight. 
When this happens, the iaverner is but paid the ordinary price 
for his turkey; but his expectation of profit is formed chiefly 
upon the sale of liquor.^ 

Bowling on the turf was also a favorite diversion. It is 
certainly a harmless amusement in itself, but the Old 
Farmer saw peril in it when it was associated with tavern- 
haunting. In his Calendar for August, 1815, he has put 
himself on record, incidentally setting forth his general 
creed on the subject of sport of every kind : — 

Bowling-greens have become of late mightily in fashion, to the 
ruin of many unfortunate young men. — Scarcely a day passes 
without the rattle of the pins in front of landlord Toddy Stick's 
house. Every boy is distracted to get away from his work in 
order to take his game. At sun two hour's high, the day is 
finished, and away goes men and boys to the bowling alley. 
Haying, hoeing, ploughing, sewing, all must give way to sport 
and toddy. Now this is no way for a farmer. It will do for the 
city lads to sport and relax in this way, and so there are proper 
times and seasons for farmers to take pleasure of this sort ; for 
I agree that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

Occasionally an innkeeper ventured into the domain of 
the showman. A couple of advertisements will give some 
idea of this kind of enterprise as manifested in Boston.^ 
The first appeared in the Massachusetts Mercury of De- 
cember 9, 1800; the second, in the Columbian Centinel of 
April 28, 1810: — 

1 E. A. Kendall, Travels through the Northern Parts of the United 
States in the Year 1807 and 1808, New York, 1809, III, 200-1. See also 
H. M. Brooks, The Olden Time Series, Boston, 1886, IV, 141-2. 

2 H. M. Brooks, The Olden Time Series, Boston, 1886, IV, 123, 132-3. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 2 77 

A Beautiful MOOSE. 

THE curious in Natural History are invited to Major King's 
Tavern, where is to be seen a fine young MOOSE of six- 
teen hands in height, and well proportioned. The properties of 
this fleet and tractable Animal are such as will give pleasure and 
satisfaction to every beholder. 

Price of admittance, Nine Pence. Dec. 9, 1800. 

Monstrous Sight ! 

TO be seen at A. POLLARD's Tavern, Elm Street — A 
white Greenland Sea BEAR, which was taken at sea, weigh- 
ing 1 000 wt. This animal lives either in the sea or on the land. 
They have been seen several leagues at sea, and sometimes float- 
ing on cakes of ice. — This animal displays a great natural curiosity. 
— Admittance 12 1-2 cts. . . children half price. 

The discomforts of inns make a large chapter in the 
tales of foreign travellers in America, — English travel- 
lers especially, v^^ho cling tenaciously to their national pre- 
rogative of grumbling. There is, however, a charming 
passage in the narrative of the Duke de la Rochefoucault- 
Liancourt, referring to 1795. This distinguished nobleman, 
who had selected a particularly diminutive inn as a haven 
of rest, was disappointed in his hopes, but adapted him- 
self to the inevitable with true French good-humor, and 
made himself useful to his fellow-guests, who were of a 
a very humble order. This was at Maidenhead, near 
Princeton, New Jersey : — 

I chose this petty inn, to avoid falling in with the stage-coaches, 
the passengers in which, naturally engross all the accommodation, 
at the inns at which they usually stop, in preference to any soli- 
tary rider. I desired to obtain some rest. In regard to the 
inconvenience from the stage-coaches, at any other inn, I was 



278 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

very indifferent : but as to my rest, I was not indifferent ; and in 
this small place I hoped to enjoy it. But the only bed-chamber 
in the house happened, when I alighted, to be occupied by a club 
of the labourers and other inhabitants of the neighbourhood, 
assembled from the distance of two miles round. These were 
joined by people drawn together on account of a horse-race, 
which was to be run at the distance of three miles from Maiden- 
head. These people had soon a glass of grog in their heads, and 
began to make a considerable bustle in the inn. I was neces- 
sarily obliged to retire with my table, into a small corner by the 
fire, to answer the questions which they put to me, and to give 
them the use of my pen, to scrawl out their accounts. They were 
the best folks in the world ; only, in respect to their writing, a 
little more of scholars than was quite agreeable to me. I must, 
however, do them the justice, to own, that they did not hinder 
me from smoking my segar. ^ 

The tavern was not merely a place of refreshment and 
diversion : it had other public and quasi-public functions 
of a widely miscellaneous character. Auctions were held 
there; probate courts sat there; it was the rendezvous of 
the ministers who assembled for councils or ordinations ; 
the town's business was largely transacted within its walls. 
When there were several inns in a single village, — as was 
often the case, — nice care was requisite on the part of the 
civic authorities to divide their favors impartially. The 
selectmen of Groton, for example, met in succession at 
each of the three taverns in that town, as appears from an 
advertisement in the Groton Herald for March 13, 1830: — 

Stated meetings of the Selectmen. 

The Selectmen of Groton will meet on the last Saturdays of 
each month the present municipal year, at 3 o'clock, p. m. viz : 
— at Hoar's Tavern in March, April, May, and June ; at Alexan- 

1 Travels through the United States of North America, London, 1799, 
I, 548-9. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 279 

der's in July, August, wSeptember, and October; and at Shattucks 
in November, December, January, and February. 

Caleb Butler, Chairman} 

Not infrequently the landlord was a local magistrate and 
his inn served as his office. 

A leading inn in a large seaport town presented a scene 
of great variety and animation. It combined the functions 
of the modern hotel, club, railway station, and exchange. 
It was a rendezvous for merchants and shipcaptains, as 
well as for politicians and officials of all kinds. Social 
meetings, dances, and entertainments took place in its 
assembly room. Stage passengers and their friends were 
continually coming and going. In 1801, as we learn from 
the Almanac, King's Tavern, in Market Square, Boston, 
was the "terminal" for the stages for Albany, New York, 
Portsmouth, Amherst, Providence, Plymouth, Salem, 
Taunton and New Bedford, Dorchester and Milton, Ded- 
ham, Groton, Quincy, and Canton.^ Some of these ran 
daily (Sundays excepted), others three times a week, a few 
once a week. The bustle of arrival and departure must 
have been almost continuous. Nor should the numerous 
packets and the private conveyances be forgotten. The 
public rooms and the common table of such an establish- 
ment were picturesque and characteristic to a degree that 
our modern caravanseries cannot rival. As a description 
of a large city hotel, we may take an account of Tammany 
Hall as it impressed a Scottish visitor in 1818 : — 

Dined with Mr. at Tammany Hall. On one occasion 

here we had roasted bear's flesh as one of the dishes at table ; it 
tasted very much like roasted goose, but heavier. Tammany 

1 Quoted by Dr. Samuel Abbott Green, Groton Historical Series, 
VIII, 9. 

2 See a complete Table of Stages, pp. 287 ff., below ; and compare the 
List of Post Roads after p. 304. 



28o THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

Hall is one of the public hotels, and noted for the public meet- 
ings of the democratic party, or Bucktails, as they are called. 
Like the other hotels it is the residence of a good many perma- 
nent boarders ; some of them merchants of considerable wealth, 
who sit down every day at the public table. The inn is with us 
proverbially the traveller's home, but here it is the home of a 
great many besides travellers. This feature in the American 
system I cannot admire ; nor can I imagine what comfort there 
can be amidst the bustle and noise of a public tavern, or in smok- 
ing segars and drinking spirits and water in the bar-room. 

The dinner hour at Tammany Hall is three o'clock, and covers 
are every day set for from thirty to eighty. The resident board- 
ers are generally found at the upper end of the table, and the 
travellers farther down. They take their seats at the sound of 
the dinner bell, and in a little more than a quarter of an hour 
most of them are ready to leave the table. During dinner rum 
and water is the usual beverage ; few take wine unless they are 
entertaining a friend. The dinner is always excellent, combining 
every variety of substantial cheer with a plentiful allowance of the 
delicacies of the season. After dinner three or four may occa- 
sionally linger singing songs and smoking segars over a bottle ot 
wine, but the practice is by no means general. Americans spend 
little time at table, retiring very soon either to their business, or 
the bar-room to read the newspapers. Boarding is moderate at 

Tammany Hall ; Mr. tells me that he pays eight dollars a 

week, while some of the more fashionable private boarding- 
houses charge ten or twelve, and the inmates are moreover by 
usage almost necessitated to drink wine during dinner. For 
economy of time and money, and freedom from temptation, the 
system of private lodgings, as in our native country, is decidedly 
preferable to either the one or the other.^ 

Where there was no inn, it was customary for some re- 
spectable citizen to " accommodate travellers " at his own 
house. Such a host was often well-to-do, and had little 

1 J. M. Duncan, Travels through Part of the United States and Canada 
in 1818 and 1819, Glasgow, 1823, H, 246-8. 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 28 1 

concern for profit. An agreeable visit at a house of this 
kind is described by Admiral Bartholomew James, who, in 
the summer of 1791, while captain in the merchant service, 
visited Portland in his ship the Maria, and has recorded 
his impressions in a very good-humored journal, to which 
we have already had occasion to refer.^ Captain James 
was delighted with the situation of the town and much 
impressed by the cheapness of provisions. " Meat of 
every sort was supplied the ship's company, and they 
every day had their choice, at the rate of twopence per 
pound; . . . turkeys was from a shilling to eighteenpence 
each, geese a shilling, and fowls from tenpence to a shil- 
ling a couple ; the best fat sheep I bought at nine shillings 
alive, and everything else of the kind was proportionally 
cheap." 2 

On his way up the Kennebec River in the ship's long 
boat, on an excursion undertaken partly for amusement 
and partly for the sake of acquainting himself with the 
coast, Captain James had an experience which throws 
some light on the conditions of travel in New England at 
the end of the eighteenth century. Near the mouth of the 
river he was compelled by heavy weather to run aground 
on Parker's Flats. After wading over the flats and marsh 
for " at least a mile," guided by a Yankee pilot in his em- 
ploy, he called " at Captain Parker's hospitable mansion." 
The family " consisted of the good gentleman, who was a 
captain in the militia and about eighty years of age," his 
wife, who " might probably have reached her fiftieth 
year," a nephew, two nieces, " graceful, bewitching, an- 
gelic creatures," with " two domestic rustic girls and four 
rural artless clowns." Captain James's party, three in 
number, were entertained in a way that won his heart 

1 See p. 168, above. 

2 Journal of Rear-Admiral Bartholomew James, Navy Records Society, 
1896, pp. 187 ff. 



282 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

completely. Their supper was " a delicious meal" of " tea 
and toast, lamb-steaks and eggs, and a moderate quantity 
of cider and grog." Then there were family prayers, and 
the strangers were made comfortable for the night. What 
happened next morning must be related in the Captain's 
own graphic, if slightly ungrammatical, style : — 

So soon as the morning service was finished and we had taken 
a very comfortable breakfast, I directed preparations to be made 
for our departure, and consulted my pilot how I should repay the 
worthy family for their civility and kindness ; by whom I was in- 
formed I was to consider what expenses they had been at, and, 
agreeable to the custom of that part of the country, repay them 
for it. 1 further learned from him that, as we were three, and 
had a supper, beds, and breakfast, he thought the least I could 
offer them was three-and-sixpence British. I confessed my sur- 
prise at this proposition under several heads : first, how I could 
offer any money to a private independent family for their civiUty 
to me as a stranger ; and, secondly, how ridiculous such a sum as 
he proposed would appear for " all the benefits we had received 
in mind and body." To the first he assured me it was the con- 
stant custom, as there was few, if any, public-houses in that 
neighbourhood, and that as all people frequented private houses 
in their journeying through the country, it was usual to go in that 
way without the smallest hesitation, and that they would consider 
themselves much obliged to any friends who partook of their 
comforts whatever they happened to be ; and the sum he assured 
me to be equal to their expectations, and that he believed a 
larger one would be refused. Under those considerations I 
ventured to take an opportunity of addressing the old lady when 
alone, and, after thanking her for her great kindness and civility, 
begged she would allow me to leave a couple of dollars for her 
servants. She expressed the greatest astonishment at the sum, 
and insisted on my taking one of the dollars back, which, on my 
declining, she said, " Well, you will come again to us in your way 
down the river, and then you must pay nothing." 



ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND BEAST 283 

On the return trip, Captain James and his party were 
again entertained at the same house, and Mrs. Parker was as 
good as her word, refusing to accept any more money and 
insisting that she had already been sufficiently paid. The 
whole incident is highly instructive ; for the Captain makes 
it plain that the Parkers did not keep an inn and had no 
wish to make a profit out of their guests, being a well-to-do 
family. They were simply following the custom of the 
country in accommodating travellers, since there was no 
public house in the neighborhood. 

On the same expedition Captain James spent a night at 
Rittle's tavern at Pownalborough, of which he has left an 
equally agreeable record : — 

This house was kept by a German and his wife, who had a 
family of two sons and four daughters. Two of the latter were 
extremely handsome, and the civility of the whole house in- 
duced me to take up my quarters there for the night. I there- 
fore directed a small supper to be provided, and at nine o'clock 
sat down to as comfortable a meal as I ever remember to 
have fed upon. The old man smoked his pipe, and related his 
peregrinations and the difficulties he laboured under in the 
American war ; the good old wife prepared the feast, while the 
daughters, clad in homely apparel, but with looks of native 
sweetness, virtue and truth, did us the kindness to attend the 
table.^ 

John Davis, the whimsical humorist whom we have more 
than once quoted, does not fail to note the hospitable 
custom of entertaining strangers at private houses. Inci- 
dentally he laughs at his fellow-Britons for their habitual 
grumbling. He is speaking of Virginia, but the expe- 
riences of Admiral James prove that what he says was true 
of other parts of the country : — 

1 Journal, p. 192. 



284 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

I eat my dinner in a log-house on the road. It was kept by a 
small planter of the name of Homer. Such a tavern would have 
raised the thunder and lightning of anger in the page of my 
brother-travellers in America. But the lamented scarcity of 
American inns is easily accounted for. In a country where every 
private house is a temple dedicated to hospitality, and open alike 
to travellers of every description, ought it to excite surprize that 
so few good taverns are to be found ? ^ 

On the whole, it appears that the inns or taverns of 
New England were pretty comfortable places, and that 
some of them were rather distinguished. Tourists are pro- 
verbially hard to please, and it is natural that we should 
hear more of the unpleasant than of the agreeable inci- 
dents that accompanied travelling in a new country. But 
the good repute of our hotels nowadays is merely a con- 
tinuation of the character which they bore in old times. 
The administrative capacity for which the Yankee is fa- 
mous has applied itself successfully to the complicated 
business of innholding. Many noted landlords in other 
parts of the country have been New England men. Good 
cheer has become a cherished American institution. We 
can hardly venture to assert that its home is New England ; 
but one would find it hard to make out a better case for 
any other part of the continent. 

1 Travels in the United States of America, London, 1803, p. 341. 



ON THE ROAD 

FROM the earliest times in New England to the latter 
half of the eighteenth century travellers usually rode 
on horseback, and for short distances this continued 
to be the custom until long after stage lines had become 
numerous and well-managed. Felt, in his History of 
Ipswich, published in 1834, tells us that " about thirty-five 
years ago, horse-wagons began to be employed. Gradu- 
ally increasing, they have almost altogether superseded 
riding on horse-back among our farmers. They are used 
to carry articles to market, which were formerly borne to 
town in wallets and panniers, thrown across a horse. They 
have prevented the method of going in a cart, as often 
practised before they were invented, by social parties, when 
wishing to make a visit of several miles." ^ Travelling on 
horseback is now so completely obsolete in New England, 
— though riding for pleasure is happily on the increase, — 
that certain directions for the management of horses on a 
journey, given in the Almanac for 1794, have merely an 
historical significance. No one would think of uttering 
such precepts to an audience of New England farmers 
nowadays. They would have little more to do with the 
needs of the community than a treatise on the care of 
camels in desert traffic. Yet when they were written they 
were quite to the point. 

The English traveller Bennett, in 1740, thus describes 
the usual methods of travel in New England : — 

1 Joseph B. Felt, History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, Cambridge, 
1834, p. 32. 



286 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

There are several families in Boston that keep a coach, and 
pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses ; but for 
chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they 
outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the 
coach, but not any of that beautiful large black breed so common 
in London. Their saddle-horses all pace naturally, and are gen- 
erally counted sure-footed ; but they are not kept in that fine 
order as in England. The common draught-horses used in carts 
about the town are very small and poor, and seldom have their 
fill of anything but labor. The country carts and wagons are 
generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according to the dis- 
tance of place, or burden they are laden with. When the ladies 
ride out to take the air, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and 
then but a single horse ; and they have a negro servant to drive 
them. The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in 
chairs, and others on horseback, with their negroes to attend 
them. They travel in much the same manner on business as for 
pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages. 
Their roads, though they have no turnpikes, are exceeding good 
in summer; and it is safe travelling night or day, for they have 
no highway robbers to interrupt them. It is pleasant riding 
through the woods ; and the country is pleasantly interspersed 
with farm-houses, cottages, and some few gentlemen's seats, 
between the towns. But the best of their inns, and houses of 
entertainment, are very short of the beauty and conveniences of 
ours in England. They have generally a little rum to drink, and 
some of them have a sorry sort of Madeira wine. And to eat 
they have Indian corn roasted, and bread made of Indian meal, 
and sometimes a fowl or fish dressed after a fashion, but pretty 
good butter, and very sad sort of cheese ; but those that are used 
to those things think them tolerable.^ 

In the last two decades of the eighteenth century there 
was a great improvement in roads and a marked increase 

1 Joseph Bennett, Manuscript History of New England, Proc. Mass. 
Hist. Soc, V, 124-5. 



ON THE ROAD 287 

in the number of stage lines. Wansey, in 1794, remarked 
that " eight years ago the road from Boston to Newhaven 
a distance of one hundred and seventy miles, could scarcely 
maintain two stages and twelve horses ; now it maintains 
twenty stages weekly, with upwards of an hundred horses ; 
so much is travelling encreased in this district." ^ Such 
growth may partly account for the complaints which we 
often hear about this time as to the quality of the roadside 
inns. Hotels in the smaller towns found it hard to keep 
pace with the development of business and the advancing 
requirements of the public. 

In the first year of the nineteenth century the Almanac 
gives the following — 

LIST ^/STAGES that run from BOSTON, and PLACES 
from which they start. 

ALBANY Mail Stage goes through Worcester, Brookfield and 
Northampton, to Albany ; sets off from King's inn, Market- 
Square, every Monday and Thursday morning, at 10 o'clock, and 
arrives at Albany every Thursday and Monday noon. 

PROVIDENCE and NEW- YORK southern Mail Stage sets 
off from Israel Hatch's coffee-house, corner of Exchange- Lane, 
State-Street, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at 8 o'clock 
in the morning, and arrives at New- York every Wednesday, Fri- 
day and Sunday noon : leaves New- York every Tuesday, Thurs- 
day and Saturday, at 10 o'clock in the morning, and arrives in 
Boston every Friday, Monday and Wednesday, at 3 o'clock in 
the afternoon. 

An extra stage runs every day to Providence, from the above 
office. 

BOSTON and NEW-YORK Mail Stage sets off from King's 
inn, Market-Square, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 
10 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at New York every 

1 Journal of an Excursion to the United States of North America in the 
Summer of 1794, Salisbury, 1796, pp. 71-72. 



288 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday, at i o'clock in the afternoon : 
leaves New- York every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 
1 1 o'clock in the morning, an<i arrives at Boston every Thursday, 
Saturday and Tuesday, at i o'clock in the afternoon. 

OLD LINE Stage sets off from King's inn, Market-Square, 
every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at lo o'clock in the 
morning and arrives at New- York every Friday, Monday and 
W'ednesday, at i o'clock in the afternoon : leaves New- York every 
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at lo o'clock in the morning, 
and arrives at Boston every Friday, Monday and Wednesday, at 
I o'clock in the afternoon. 

LEOMINSTER Mail Stage passes through Concord and Lan- 
caster, to Leominster ; sets off from James Clark's tavern, White 
Lion, No. 23, Newbury-Street, every Wednesday and Saturday, at 
5 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Leominster the same 
days : leaves Leominster every Monday and Thursday, at 5 o'clock 
in the morning and arrives in Boston the same days. 

PORTSMOUTH Mail Stage passes through Salem, and New- 
bury- Port ; sets off from King's inn, Market- Square, every 
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 3 o'clock in the morning, 
and arrives at Portsmouth the same days, at 6 o'clock in the 
evening : leaves Portsmouth every Tuesday, Thursday and Sat- 
urday, at 3 o'clock in the morning, and arrives in Boston the 
same days, at 6 o'clock in the evening. 

AMHERST Mail Stage passes through Billerica ; sets off from 
King's inn, Market-Square, every Wednesday morning, at 4 o'clock, 
and arrives at Amherst at 7 o'clock in the evening, the same day : 
leaves Amherst every Monday, at 4 o'clock in the morning, and 
arrives in Boston at 7 o'clock in the evening of the same day. 

PROVIDENCE Stage sets off from King's inn every day in the 
week (Sundays excepted) at 8 o'clock in the morning, and arrives 
at Providence at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 

PLYMOUTH Mail Stage passes through Hingham ; sets off 
from King's inn, Market-Square, every Tuesday, Thursday and 
Saturday, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Plymouth 
the same days, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon : leaves Plymouth 



ON THE ROAD 289 

every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 6 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and arrives in Boston the same days, at 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

SALEM Mail Stage sets off from King's inn, Market-Square, 
every day in the week (Sundays excepted) at 3 o'clock in the 
afternoon, and arrives in Boston every day, at 1 1 o'clock in the 
morning. 

MARBLE HEAD Stage sets off from King's inn, Market- 
Square, and returns the same as Salem stage. 

TAUNTON and NEW-BEDFORD Mail Stage sets off from 
King's inn, Market-Square, every Tuesday, Thursday and Satur- 
day, at 3 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Taunton at 12 
o'clock, and at New-Bedford at 6 o'clock the same evening : 
leaves New-Bedford every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 
3 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Boston the same days, at 
6 o'clock in the evening. 

DORCHESTER and MILTON Stage sets off every day from 
King's inn, Market-Square, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and 
arrives in Boston every day, at 9 o'clock in the morning. 

CAPE-ANN Stage passes through Salem and Beverly ; sets 
off from the Yankee Hero tavern, Wing's-Lane, every Wednesday 
and Saturday, at 8 o'clock in the morning, and arrives the same 
days at Cape-Ann : leaves Cape-Ann every Tuesday and Friday, 
and arrives in Boston the same days, at 4 o'clock. 

MEDFORD Stage sets off every day (Sundays excepted) from 
Mr. Patterson's tavern, Wing's-Lane, at 12 o'clock, and arrives 
in Boston every day, at 8 o'clock in the morning. N. B. Sets 
off and returns twice every Saturday. 

NEWBURY-PORT Stage sets off from Mr. Evans's tavern, 
Ann-Street, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at 5 o'clock 
in the morning, and arrives at Newbury-Port at 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon, same day : leaves that place every Monday, Wednes- 
day and Friday, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and arrives in Boston 
the same days, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 

HAVERHH.L Stage passes through Andover; sets off from 
Mr. Evans's tavern, Ann-Street, every Monday, Wednesday and 

19 



29© THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Friday, at 3 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Haverhill at 
II o'clock, same days: leaves Haverhill at 10 o'clock in the 
morning, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and arrives in 
Boston at 7 o'clock in the evening, same days. 

SALEM Stage sets off from Israel Hatch's coffee-house, corner 
of Exchange- Lane, State-Street, every morning (Sundays ex- 
cepted) at 8 o'clock, and arrives at Salem at 11 o'clock : leaves 
that place at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrives in Boston at 
6 o'clock. 

GROTON Stage sets off from King's inn, Market-Square, every 
Wednesday, at 4 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Groton 
at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, same day : leaves Groton every 
Monday, at 4 o'clock in the morning, and arrives in Boston at 
6 o'clock in the afternoon, same day. 

CAMBRIDGE Stage sets off from the old State-house, Corn- 
hill, twice every day (Sundays excepted) at 12 o'clock, noon, 
and at 6 o'clock in the afternoon : arrives in Boston at 10 o'clock 
in the morning, and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

ROXBURY and BROOKLINE Stage sets off and arrives at 
the same place and hours as Cambridge Stage. 

WATERTOWxN Stage sets off from the old State-House, Corn- 
hill, every day (Sundays excepted) at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, 
and arrives in Boston every day, at 10 o'clock in the morning. 

DEDHAM Stage starts from King's inn every day in the week 
(Sundays excepted) at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrives in 
Boston the same days, at 10 o'clock in the morning. 

QLTINCY Stage sets off from King's inn every Tuesday, 
Thursday and Saturday, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrives 
in Boston the same days, at 10 o'clock in the morning. 

CANTON Stage sets off from King's Inn every Tuesday, 
Thursday and Saturday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrives 
in Boston the same days, at 9 o'clock in the morning. 

We are familiar with the general idea that facilities for 
transportation have improved wonderfully within a hun- 
dred years ; but it is after all a little startling to consider 



ON THE ROAD 29 1 

that the modest list just printed is a complete time-table of 
all the lines running from Boston in 1801. We may com- 
pare it at our leisure with the voluminous railroad schedules 
of the present day. 

The American stagecoaches were so different from the 
English that almost every visitor from the mother country 
described them at length. Out of an embarrassing number 
of such descriptions three may be selected, — dating from 
1795, 1806, and 1833 respectively. The first is from the 
pen of Thomas Twining, and refers to his journey from 
Philadelphia to Baltimore in 1795 : — 

At ten this morning the negro girl took my portmanteau under 
her arm, and accompanied me to the mail-wagon office. At 
half-past ten the wagon started up High Street, passing before the 
window of Dr. Priestley. The vehicle was a long car with four 
benches. Three of these in the interior held nine passengers, 
and a tenth passenger was seated by the side of the driver on the 
front bench. A light roof was supported by eight slender pillars, 
four on each side. Three large leather curtains suspended to 
the roof, one at each side and the third behind, were rolled up 
or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. There was no space 
nor place for luggage, each person being expected to stow his 
things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in 
front, over the driver's bench. Of course the three passengers 
on the back seat were obliged to crawl across all the other 
benches to get to their places. There were no Injcks to the 
benches to support and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing 
journey over a newly and ill made road. It would be unreason- 
able to expect perfection in the arrangements of a new country ; 
but though this rude conveyance was not without its advantages, 
and was really more suitable to the existing state of American 
roads than an English stage-coach would have been, it might 
have been rendered more convenient in some respects without 
much additional expense. Thus a mere strap behind the seats 
would have been a great comfort, and the ponderous leather 



292 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

curtains, which extended the whole length of the wagon, would 
have been much more convenient divided into two or three parts, 
and with a glass, however small, in each division to give light to 
the passengers in bad weather, and enable them to have a glimpse 
of the country. The disposal of the luggage also was extremely 
incommodious, not only to the owner, but to his neighbors. We 
were quite full, having ten passengers besides the driver.^ 

Our second example is from Melish's Travels, and has 
to do with intercourse between Boston and New York in 
1806: — 

Having taken my leave of a number of kind friends, with 
whom I had associated during my stay in Boston, I engaged a 
passage by the mail stage for New York, and was called to take 
my place on the 4th of September, at 2 o'clock in the morning. 
It is the practice here for the driver to call on the passengers 
before setting out, and it is attended with a considerable degree 
of convenience to them, particularly when they set out early in 
the morning. The mail stages here are altogether different in 
construction from the mail coaches in Britain. They are long 
machines, hung upon leather braces, with three seats across, of 
a sufficient length to accommodate three persons each, who all 
sit with their faces towards the horses. The driver sits under 
cover, without any division between him and the passengers ; 
and there is room for a person to sit on each side of him. The 
driver, by the post-office regulations, must be a white man, and 
he has the charge of the mail, which is placed in a box below his 
seat. There is no guard. The passengers' luggage is put below 
the seats, or tied on behind the stage. They put nothing on the 
top, and they take no outside passengers. The stages are slightly 
built, and the roof suspended on pillars ; with a curtain, to be 
let down or folded up at pleasure. The conveyance is easy, and in 
summer very agreeable ; but it must be excessively cold in winter.^ 

1 Travels in America 100 Years Ago, being Notes and Reminiscences by 
Thomas Twining, New York, 1894, pp. 5S-60. 

2 John Melish. Travels in the United States of America, Philadelphia, 
1S12, I, ic6. 



ON THE ROAD 293 

For our third description we are indebted to Abdy, the 
Oxonian, who is telHng what happened to him in New 
England in 1833 : — 

I left Northampton on the 1 6th, at three, a.m., for Boston, 
and arrived at that place about eight in the evening. The road 
was good ; and, if we had not changed our vehicle three times 
during the journey, and stopped at the various post-offices for 
the bags, and at the hotels for refreshment, we should have got 
in much sooner. The first fifteen miles were performed in an 
hour and forty minutes. The distance is ninety-four miles. The 
passengers were inclined to be sociable ; and, as it was a fine 
day, and the country not uninteresting, the journey passed off 
pleasantly enough. An English coachman would have been 
somewhat amused with the appearance of the stage and the cos- 
tume of the driver. The former was similar to some that are 
common enough in France, though not known on our side of the 
channel. It was on leathern springs ; the boot and the hind 
part being appropriated to the luggage, while the box was occu- 
pied by two passengers in addition to the " conducteur," and as 
many on the roof. On the top, secured by an iron rail, were 
some of the trunks and boxes, and inside were places for nine ; 
two seats being affixed to the ends, and one, parallel to them, 
across the middle of the carriage. Our driver sat between two 
of the outsides, and when there was but one on the box, over the 
near wheeler ; and holding the reins, or lines, as he called them, 
in such a manner as to separate his team into couples, not a-breast, 
but in a line or tandem fashion, drove along with considerable 
skill and dexterity. When he got down, he fastened the " ribbons" 
to a ring, or a post in front of the house where he had occasion 
to pull up.^ 

In the less thickly settled parts of the country the 
stagecoach gave way to the " stage-wagon." This was 

1 E. S. Abdy, Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United States from 
April, 1833, to October, 1834, London, 1835, I, iiS-rg. 



294 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

a primitive contrivance, "a mere cart with four wheels," 
one traveller calls it, — and was usually drawn by two 
horses. Chairs were sometimes used as seats, but there 
were not always enough to go round. Not infrequently 
the passenger had to sit on his own baggage. Lambert, 
who toured about the United States and Canada from 1806 
to 1808, grows eloquent in discoursing of the discomforts 
of these vehicles. He is describing his trip from Burlington, 
Vermont, to St. Albans: — 

I had a most uncomfortable seat in the hind part of the waggon 
upon the mail bag, and other goods. I might, indeed, have sat 
in front along with the driver, but my legs would have been 
cramped between a large chest, and the fore part of the waggon. 
Of two evils, I chose the least : but I shall never forget the 
shaking, jolting, jumbling, and tossing, which I experienced over 
this disagreeable road, up and down steep hills, which obliged 
me to alight, (for we had only two poor jaded horses to drag 
us) and fag through the sand and dust, exposed to a burning 
sun. When we got into our delectable vehicle again, our situation 
was just as bad ; for the road in many parts was continually 
obstructed by large stones ; stumps of trees, and fallen timber ; 
deep ruts and holes, over which, to use an American phrase, we 
were zvaggon\l most unmercifully.^ 

The different modes of conveyance required on a long 
journey may be seen in the itinerary of Dr. Jeremy Belknap, 
who went from Boston to Niagara, in 1796, to inspect the 
mission conducted among the Oneida Indians by the 
Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. He was ab- 
sent not quite one month, for he left Boston on the ninth 
of June and reached home on the sixth of July. Here 
is his time-table, drawn up in brief form by the Doctor 
himself, who was one of the most accurate of men : — 

1 John Lambert, Travels through Lower Canada and the United States 
of North America, London, iSio, III, 4SS. 



ON THE ROAD 295 

Memorandum of distances and modes of travelling 
from Boston to Niagara, 

In the stage, which sets out from Boston on Monday and 
Thursday mornings, you go the 

miles. 

first day to Brookfield 66 

second day to Northampton 34 

third day to Pittsfield 40 

fourth day to Albany 40 

180 

Here you may rest, and from hence proceed on any day, fore- 
noon or afternoon, to Schenectada 16 

Thence you may go either in the stage-wagon by land, or in 
boats up the Mohawk River. The former is accomplished in 
less time than the latter. The stage goes every Tuesday and 
Friday morning — 

the first day to Canajohara 40 

the second to Whites- town 46 

102 

Here the stage ends. 

From Whites-town to Fort Stanwix is a wagon-road, and wagons 

may be hired 12 

Fort Stanwix is situate on the upper waters of Mohawk River, 

from which is a portage to Wood Creek, where a Canal is now 

making 2 

Thence by water, down W^ood Creek to Oneida Lake 2 7 
Across Oneida Lake to Fort Bruington .... 35 

Down the river to Oswego Falls 12 

Portage 150 feet. Thence to Oswego Fort on Lake 

Ontario 12 

Thence through the lake to Niagara .... 160 , 

260 

The connection between stage lines was often uncertain, 
— still more so was that between stage and packet. At 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, XIX, 422-3. 



206 THE OLD FARMER'S ALM.\NACK 

Providence, in iSo6. it was the rule that if the New York 
packet brought three passengers for Boston, the stage was 
" bound to go with them at any hour." ^ Local stages often 
picked up their passengers at the houses, — an accommodat- 
ing habit which rendered the hour of departure inconstant. 
Through stages that were unhampered by connecting 
lines of traffic often made good time, especially if there 
were competing lines. Israel Hatch's daily stages from 
Boston to Providence, established about 1793, covered 
the distance between five o'clock in the morning and two 
in the afternoon, changing horses once, at the half-way 
house in Walpole. The fare was one dollar .^ but this was 
a cut-rate, expressly advertised as " one half the custo- 
mary price, and 3s. cheaper than any other stage. " In 
iSii the stage ride from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, tvvo 
hundred and ninety-seven miles, took six days; a wagon 
required about twenty days. Stage fare was twenty 
dollars ; wagon fare, *' five dollars per cwt. for both per- 
sons and property."^ The faster stages were often deco- 
rated with such hyperbolical titles as " Flying Machine " 
and " Flying Mail." The famous Telegraph Line from 
Boston to Albany was in 1S31 operated under a contract 
which bound the drivers to make seven miles an hour on 
the average, day and night, including stops.* 

Naturally journeys of any length were planned a good 
while beforehand, and intending travellers were always on 
the watch for casual means of conveyance. Their alert 
attitude is well exemplified in the following typical 
advertisement, from a Philadelphia ne^^•spaper of 1777: — 
" A person wants to go to Boston and would be glad of a 
place in a chaise or wagon going there, or if only half the 

1 Melish. Travels. Philadelphia, iSi:, I, So. 

2 Fdward Field, The Colonial Tavern, Providence, 1S07, P- -73- 
s Melish. II. 5;. 

* F. M. Thompson, History of Greenfield, Mass., 1904, pp. 976-7. 



ON THE ROAD 297 

way on that road, and a genteel price will be given. Any 
this will suit will be waited on by leaving a line with the 
printer." ^ 

Our foreign visitors were better pleased with our sleighs, 
which to most of them were complete novelties, than with 
our stagecoaches and wagons. " No carriage," writes one 
just before the Revolution, " goes with so easy a motion as 
these sleighs do, having none of the jolting motion of a 
wheel-carriage ; but much resembling the motion of what 
we used to call a shuggie-shevv, or a vessel before a fine 
wind."^ The same authority was much struck with the 
American custom of sleigh-riding for pleasure. " The 
young ladies and gentlemen," he says, " are so fond of 
this, as a diversion, that whenever the snow gives over 
falling, tho' it be after sun-set, they will not wait till next 
day, but have their sleigh yoked directly, and drive about 
without the least fear of catching cold from the night 
air." ^ 

The earliest agitation for railroads in New England con- 
templated particularly the establishment of lines on which 
freight should be transported by means of horses. The 
Quincy Railroad, finished in 1827, was of this kind; it 
was only a few miles in length and was used to carry 
granite from the quarries to tidewater. In 1829, William 
Jackson, in a lecture before the Massachusetts Charitable 
Mechanic Association, gave much space to showing what 
loads could be drawn by a horse on a railroad in comparison 
with the work that he could do on an ordinary turnpike.* 
He was, however, fully cognizant of the experiments that 

1 Pennsylvania Evening Post, September 4, 1777, quoted in Potter's 
American Monthly, IV, 307. 

- Patrick M'Robert, Tour through Part of the North Provinces of 
America, Edinburgh, 1776, p. 47. 

■^ The same, p. 46. 

* William Jackson, Lecture on Rail Roads, delivered lanuary 12, 1829, 
Boston, 1S29, pp. II ff. 



298 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

had been tried with locomotives, and believed, though he 
expressed himself cautiously, that steam would soon super- 
sede horsepower. At this time the enthusiasm for a line 
from Boston to Albany was great, and Jackson's address 
was meant to further the project. A large part of the 
route had already been surveyed at public expense, and 
it was hoped that the undertaking would be fathered by 
the State. There was much scornful incredulity, however, 
which found utterance in various amusing ways. In 1827 
Captain Basil Hall, whose Travels in America is deservedly 
celebrated for its intelligence and good-humor, went over 
a considerable part of the route between Boston and 
Albany. He was assured, he tells us, that it had been 
" seriously proposed " to connect these two cities by rail, 
but this he characterizes as a " visionary project." Ap- 
peals were frequently made to him to admire the plan. 
" I was compelled to admit," he says, " that there was 
much boldness in the conception ; but I took the liberty 
of adding, that I conceived the boldness lay in the concep- 
tion alone ; for, if it were executed, its character would be 
changed into madness."^ 

Captain Hall's language is moderation itself in compari- 
son with some of the strictures of the Massachusetts press. 
In June, 1827, there appeared in the Boston Courier a 
satirical article from the pen of the editor, Joseph T. 
Buckingham, which ridiculed the " railroad mania " un- 
sparingly : — 

Alcibiades, or some other great man of antiquity, it is said, cut 
off his dog's tail, that quid mines (we suppose such animals existed 
in ancient as well as in modern times) might not become extinct 
for want of excitement. Some such motive, we doubt not, 
moved one or two of our natural and experitnental philosophers 
to get up the project of a railroad from Boston to Albany; — a 

1 Travels in North America in the years 1827 and 1S28, Edinburgh, 1829, 
II. 93- 



ON THE ROAD 299 

project, which every one knows, — who knows the simplest rules 
in arithmetic, — to be impracticable but at an expense little less 
than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts ; 
and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows 
would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the Moon. 
Indeed, a road of some kind from here to the heart of that beau- 
tiful satellite of our dusky planet would be of some practical 
utility, — especially, if a few of our notional, public-spirited men, 
our railway fanatics, could be persuaded to pay a visit to their 
proper country.^ . 

Mr. Buckingham, however, was speedily converted. 
Within a year, as he tells us himself, he joined in a petition 
to the legislature for a road from Boston to Ogdensburg.^ 

In 1831 the Farmer's Almanack contains a significant 
item. It had long included a full-page Map of New Eng- 
land to illustrate the List of Stage Routes which was 
an indispensable feature of every such annual. In the 
year mentioned, the list is accompanied by the following 
paragraph : — 

Rail Roads. The direction of the several rail road routes 
which have been proposed, leading from Boston, may be under- 
stood by reference to the following map. The principal routes are 
I. from Boston through Framingham, Worcester, Springfield, and 
Pittsfield, to Albany. 2. From Boston through VValtham, and 
Fitchburg to Brattleborough. 3. From Boston to Lowell, thence 
through Concord and Montpelier to Burlington, and thence 
westerly to Ogdensburg. 4. From Boston to Providence. 

The railroads, like the stage routes, are not marked in 
Mr. Thomas's map. 

1 Joseph T. Buckingham, Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Edi- 
torial Life, Boston, 1852, II, 15. 

2 The same, II, 16. 



300 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

1 83 1 was the decisive year for New England railroading. 
The Boston and Providence and the Boston and Worcester 
Railroads were incorporated, and these two companies, as 
well as the Boston and Lowell, which had received a 
charter in 1830, were definitely organized. Active con- 
struction was begun without delay, and in 1834 and 1835 
all three roads were opened to public travel.^ 

The first experiment with a locomotive in New England 
was made on the Boston and Worcester road, then com- 
pleted as far as Newton, on March 17th, 1834. On the 
fourth of April the new invention was put to practical 
use. The event is thus reported in the Boston Patriot for 
April 5th: — 

A Locomotive Engine was yesterday employed in hauling 
gravel on the Boston & Worcester Rail Road. The engine 
worked with ease, was perfectly manageable, and showed power 
enough to travel at any desirable speed. The distance traveled 
was about three miles, and the train usually traversed this dis- 
tance, both with loaded and with empty cars, in about ten 
minutes, the engine blowing off waste steam a great part of the 
time, and evidently capable of carrying a much greater load, or 
moving with greater rapidity. 

Regular passenger service between Boston and Newton 
began on May i6th, with three trains a day in either 
direction, " leaving Boston at 6 and 10 A. M., and 3. 30 P. M. 
and returning at 7 and 1 1.15 A. M, and 4.45 P. M. The fare 
was 37^ cents. . . . The trip was at first made in nineteen 
minutes, but this was thought to be faster than necessary, 

1 Nathan Hale, in an article on the Massachusetts Railway System in the 
Boston Advertiser, September, 17, 18, 19, 1851, as reprinted in — The Rail- 
road Jubilee : an Account of the Celebration Commemorative of the Opening 
of Railroad Communication between Boston and Canada, September 17th, 
i8th, and 19th, 1851. Boston, 1S52, p. 233. 



ON THE ROAD 30I 

and by a vote of the directors the engineers were required 
to increase the time to thirty minutes, or at the rate of 
about eighteen miles an hour." The first cars were similar 
in design to the English railway coach, box cars not being 
adopted until several years later.^ In 1835 ^^ English 
visitor was able to record that there was now " very speedy 
communication " between Boston and New York by way of 
Providence, — the distance "being performed in twenty 
hours, by rail-road and steam-boat." The same writer 
was a good deal impressed by the expenditure of " some 
thousands of dollars " to clear the tracks of the Boston 
and Lowell road from a single fall of snow. ^ 

Even when railroading was well under way, there was 
considerable doubt in the minds of many as to its ad- 
vantages to agriculture. The Almanac for 1837 gives 
expression to these scruples in a little sketch of a disap- 
pointed farmer who had built high hopes on the new 
enterprise : — 

All for the railway — and, to be sure, it is a very clever thing, 
but not altogether so for farmer Credulous as he imagined that it 
would be. It was laid out straight through his valuable and 
beautiful farm. He thought it would certainly improve it full 
five hundred fold. But he reckoned up his chickens and counted 
them all off, not only before they were hatched, but even before 
the nest was made. Here was an extensive, level plain, where, 
it was tho't, the rail-cars would skim beautifully for miles upon the 
surface. " You are welcome," said Credulous, " to pass through my 
land ; " and so they held him to the bargain, and cut thirty feet 
deep through the centre the whole length of his farm! This was 
a woful speculation for my old friend Creddy. He now execrates 
all railways, turnpikes, canals, and internal improvements, without 
distinction, and considers them but gull-traps for the unwary. 

1 B. T. Hill, Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, XVII, 

549-51- 

^ Harriet Martineau, Society in America, London, 1837, II, 186. 



302 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

When a man gets a good farm, and is able to carry it on, let him 
think himself well off. Should he have a little cash on hand, it will 
be convenient enough ; but it is unfortunate if he gives heed to 
every speculation story that is told, and is willing to be flattered 
into a belief that he is to be enriched by every stone that is 
turned, and by every new project and plan. (October, 1837.) 

The prejudice against railroads entertained by a good 
many people in New England died hard. As late as 1842 
the inhabitants of Dorchester voted, in town-meeting, that 
a railroad on either of two proposed lines " will be of incal- 
culable evil to the town generally, in addition to the 
immense sacrifice of private property which will also be 
involved. A great portion of the road will lead through 
thickly settled and populous parts of the town, crossing 
and running contiguous to public highways, and thereby 
making a permanent obstruction to a free intercourse of 
our citizens, and creating great and enduring danger and 
hazard to all travel upon the common roads." Further 
they declared that, if a railroad must be built, " it should 
be located upon the marshes and over creeks," and finally 
it was — 

Resolved, That our representatives be instructed to use their 
utmost endeavors to prevent, if possible, so great a calamity to 
our town as must be the location of any rail-road through it; 
and, if that cannot be prevented, to diminish this calamity as 
far as possible by confining the location to the route herein 
designated.^ 

In 1841 Mr. Thomas first inserted railroads into his Map of 
New England, thus admitting them to a kind of parity with 
the stage routes which the map was meant to illustrate. 
(See opposite page.) 

1 Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past, Boston, 1883, p. 34S. 




OF 

ENGLAND. 



ON THE ROAD 303 

In 1844 the Almanac gives a table exhibiting the twelve 
hundred miles of railroad connected with Boston : — 

TABLE, 

Showing the length of Railway radiating from, and in connection 
with, the City of Boston. 

Miles. 

From Boston, via Albany, to Buffalo, 518 

" '* " Portsmouth, to Portland, ..... 104 

" " " Lowell, Nashua, Concord, ..... 62 

" " to Providence, 41 

" Providence to Stonington, 47 

Branch from Wilmington to Dover, N. H., . . , . , 44 

Dedham branch, , . . 2 

Taunton branch, and extension to New Bedford, ... 35 

Bedford and Fall River, o . . . 13 

Norwich and Worcester, 58^^ 

New Haven to Hartford, 36, and extension to Springfield, 

24 miles, all not completed, but in a fair way, . . 60 

West Stockbridge to Bridgeport, gS 

West Stockbridge to Hudson, 33 

Troy to Schenectady, 22 

Troy to Ballston, 20 

Schenectady and Saratoga, 21 

Lockport, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo, 43 

I,22li^ 

In 1845 there appears, along with the old Table of Roads, 
a list of " Towns, &c. passed through by Railroads from 
Boston, with the distances of the various stations from that 
city " ; but it occupies only a quarter of the space required 
by its venerable rival. In 1846 the old list of stage roads, 
which had been a feature of the Almanac for more than 
fifty years, was dropped, as no longer valuable enough to 
pay for the space which it occupied. The railroad had 
conquered. 



304 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

The Road Lists just referred to, which came out year by 
year in the Almanac from 1793 to 1845, are of consider- 
able interest in more ways than one. That for 1802 is 
reproduced below, in what is practically a facsimile of the 
original typography. The system of inland communica- 
tion, we observe, was well developed. It extended from 
Quebec to Savannah, and from the Atlantic coast to the 
Ohio. The post-road from Boston to Savannah covered 
more than twelve hundred miles. From Fishkill, New 
York, to the Ohio was four hundred and twenty-nine miles, 
and then one might continue, in the words of the Almanac, 
"down the Ohio to the mouth of the Muskingum " ninety- 
five miles farther. The stations, if we may give them 
that namC; on the Ohio road, have more than once a 
suggestion of romance, or, at all events, of wild life and 
pioneering. We met with such designations as " Clark's 
Gap," " Over the Blue Mountain to Skinner's," " Fork of 
the old Pennsylvania and Glade Roads," " Shumral's Ferry 
at the Youghiegany River, or Bud's Ferry, 2 miles further 
up," and, best of all, " Over the Path Valley and Tusca- 
rora Mountains to the Burnt Cabins." The tavern at the 
"foot of Skillinghill" was kept by a Mr. Panther. 

The mention of " those who keep Houses of Entertain- 
ment" lends especial value to these Road Lists. The New 
Englander will recognize a host of familiar surnames and 
many inns that were famous enough in their day. He 
may even encounter some of his own ancestors, and he 
will at all events make the acquaintance of quasi-public 
functionaries to whom his forefathers were indebted for 
substantial good cheer. It might be invidious to distinguish 
particular hostelries, but it can do no harm to point out, 
opposite " Dedham," the significant word " Ames," which 
reminds us of the Sun tavern which the old doctor adver- 
tised so successfully in the middle of the eighteenth 
century (see p. 264 above). 



ROADS 
To the principal Towns on tlie Continent, from BoJIou, with 
the Names of thofe who keep Houfes of Entertainment. 



The Author of this Almanack luill be greatly obliged to any Gentleman 
for a correct Lijl of the Innkeepers, Dijlances, &=c. on any Pofl-Road herein 
mentioned, fealed up and lodged at the Sign of the Lamb, Bofton, dircdled to 
R. B. Thomas, Sterling. 



From Boflon to Ne^vport, 

over vStv/('/i£i;//^, through 

Reh oboth. Miles 

Roxbury Whiting 8 

Dedham Ames & Gay 5 

Ellis 3 

Walpole Policy 7 

Wrentham Druce 6 

AttleboroLigh Holmes 5 

Newell 4 

Rehoboth Carpenter 7 

Warren Cole S 

Brillol Bourn 4 

Ferry- Houfe Pearfe 2 

Portfmouth Congden 7 

Newport 5 

69 

To Plymouth & Cape Cod. 
Roxbury Kent 4 

Milton Pierce 3 

Quincy Marili 2 

ditto Salilbury 2 

Weymouth Arnold i 

ditto Rice 3 

Hingham Waters 3 

Scituate Collamore 4 
Hanover Wales 5 

Pembroke Baker 4 

Kingfton Little 6 

Plymouth Bartlett & 
W^therell 4 

ditto Cornifh 6 

ditto Ellis 5 

Sandwich Newcomb 

& Feffenden 7 
Rarnflable Howland, 

Baxter & Chipman 8 



ditto 
Yarmouth 

Harwich 

ditto Clark & Snow 
Eaftham Knowles 

ditto Knowles 



Loring & 
Crocker 
Baffet & 

Thatcher 
Silk 



Wellfleet Collins & 

Lombard 9 

Truro Knowles 7 

ditto Stevens i 

Provincetown Nick- 

erfon 7 

117 

To Martha''s Vineyard. 
Sandwich Feffenden 60 
Falmouth Filh 10 

Falmouthtown Hatch 8 
Wood's Hole Parker 4 
Over the ferry to Vine- 
yard 9 

91 
Road to Taunton, Som- 

erfet, Warren, Briflol, 

and Nezvport. 
Milton 

ditto 
Canton 

ditto 

ditto 
-Sharon 
Eafton 
Taunton 



Vofe 7 
Bradley 3 
Bent 4 
May I 
Crane 2 
Savage 2 
Wetherbery 5 
Porter, Bol- 
cum & Hodges 12 
Dighton Dean and 

Brown 7 



Somerfet 
Swanzey 
Warren 
Brillol 



Davis 4 
Chace 5 

Keiih 4 



Over the ferry to New 
port Townfend 13 

74 

Poft-Roadto Providence. 
Roxbury Whiting 8 

ditto Draper i 

Dedham Gay & Clap 2 

ditto Ellis 3 



Dedham Everet 2 

Walpole Smith, Bil- 
lings «& Smith 3I 
Wrentham Hatch 4 

ditto Bolcom 4 

Attleborough Hawes 5 

ditto Newell 4 

ditto Barrows 2 

Seekhonk Plain Sabins 2 
Patucket Slack i 

Providence Holmes, 

Hartihorn & Bafter 4 

45 

To Charleflown, (New- 
HampfJiire) & Crown- 
point. 
Watertown WillingtonS 
Waltham Townfend 2 
Concord Parkman 10 
AClon Jones 5 

Harvard Parkhurft 8 
ditto Atherton 2 

fitchburgh Cowden 11 
ditto Upton 3 

Wellminfter Cooper i 
Afliburnham Culhing 2 
ditto Ruffell i 

Winchendon Hale 5 
ditto Kidder 4 

Fitzwilliam Stone 4 

ditto Reed 5 

New Marlbro' Switcher 
ditto Roberts 8 

Keene Richardfon 
ditto Bullard 

ditto Edwards 6 

Walpole Moore 10 

ditto Bellows 2d 4 
ditto Bellows 3 

Charleflown Stone 9 
ditto Willard & 

Carpenter 
Nott's ferry 5 

Springfield Stevens 3 



WeathersfieldSpafford2|Montreal 



Cavendifh 

ditto 
Otter Creek 
Rutland 
Pittsford 
Shoreham 
Bridport 
Crownpoint 



Pain 6 
Coffin 5 
Botton 20 
Meed 6 
Waters 6 
Moore 20 
Toinner 8 

2 

196 



Trois Rivieres 
Quebec 



489 



To Charleftown, (New 

Hamp/hire.) 
Menotomy Ruffel 5 

ditto Whittemore i 
Lexington 

ditto 



Newent 

Norwich 

Mohegan 



Burnham 
Lathrop 
Houghton 



[To Montreal & Quebec. 
[From Walpole Bridge, a 

new roiite?[ 
Walpole Bridge 103 
{See the foregoing lijl.) 
Over the Bridge 
Rockingham Webb 5 
Chefter Kimball 7 

Cavendifli Dutton 9 
Ludlow Reed 3 

Mountholly Green 5 
ditto Bentt 2 

Shrewfbury Roberfon 5 
Clarendon Bowman 6 



ditto 



Dudley & 
Merriam i 
Benjamin 2 
Hartwell 4 
Richardfon 3 
White 5 
Gilbert 
Richardfon 8 
Sawtel 
Lunenburgh Good 

rich cS: Whitney 5 
Fitchburgh Cowden 4 
Afliburnham CuQiing 7 



ditto 
Lincoln 
Concord 
Afton 
Littleton 
Groton 
Shirley 



New-London Douglas 7 
104 

Upper Road to Exeter 
and Portland. 

Blanchard 5 
Blackhorfe 3 
ditto Fowle 3 

Wilmington 

Blanchard 4 
Abbot 8 



Medford 
Brown 3^y^^^^r^ 

Munro 1 



Rutland 

ditto 
Pittsford 
1 ditto 
Brandon 
Leicefter 
Salilbury 
Middlebury 
Vergennes 
Ferrifburg 
Charlotte 
jShelburn 
|r>urlington 

[Milton ^ ., 

JAcrofs the found to | Hanover 

South Hero 6 

The Gut between N. 
1 & S. Hero Gordon 12 
Ferry to N. Hero i 

Hervey's Ferry 7 

Alburgh I 

Savage's Point 4 

Latitude 45° Seat & 
Grig's 8 
Barrows's 8 
Wattoy's ^ 
Chefhere's 8 



57 



Thence to Charleftown 
as in the beforemen 
tioned lift. 



Reed 5 
Finton i 
Ewings 6 
Antony 
Gilbert 5, 
Woodard 7 To Dartmouth College. 
Heard 6 Charleftown 
Mattock 6 Willardii9 

Hollifter 12I (See above.) 



Andover 

Haverhill 

Plaftow 

Kingfton 

Exeter 

Stratham 

Newmarket 

Durham 

Dover 

Berwick 

ditto 

ditto 
Wells 
Kennebunk 



Charlton 9 

Sawver 5 

Blake 6 

Folfom 5 

Folfom 5 

Folfom 5 

Gage 4 

Shannon 6 

Butler 6 

Thomfon 

Hays 3 
Littlefield 7 
Bernard 



Burt 7 Claremont 
Williams 4 ditto 
Pearfons 4 Cornifli 
Ames 7 Plainfield 
Mansfield 14 Lebanon 



Afliley 6 

Cook 4 

Chafe 5 

Safford 7 

Hall 6 

Brewfter 4 

151 



& Howard 9 
Biddeford Hooper 10 
Saco Bridge Spring 
Pepperelbo. Bradbury 4 
Scarborough Milikin 2 

ditto 

ditto 
Stroudwater 
Portland 



To A'orwich and N^ew- 
London 



Providence 
Johnfon 

Scituate 

ditto 
Coventry 
St. John's Gill 4lVolentown 

Leproire iSlPlamfield 



Marfli 4 
March 2 
Broad 5 
Greele & 
Motley 4 



127 

Poft-Road to Salem 
Neivbury-Port, and 
port/mouth. 
Over Maiden Bridge 



Attleborough Newel 36 Maiden Bridge Page 2 



Rice 9 
Sheldon 3 To Lynn 

Fifke 5panvers 

Angel 4 Salem 
Taylor 6 

Knox 4|Beverly 
Dorance 4 



Eaton 41 Wenham 



(New road) 

Newell 6 

Frye 7 

Webb and Buf- 

fington I 

Goodridge 2 

Baker if 

Porter 



Hamilton Brown& 

Adams 2 
Ipfwich Swazey & 

Treadwell 4 
Rowley Parley & 

Bifhop 4 
Newbury-Port Dav- 
enport S 
Merrimack Bridge 

Pearfon 3 
Hampton falls Wells 7 
Hampton Leavitt 5 

Northampton Leavitt 
& Dearbon 
Greenland Hufe 5 

Portfmouth Brewller, 
Greenleaf, Geddes 

& Davenport 5 

67 

Road to Machias. 
(To Portlmouth, as a- 

bove.) 
From Portfmouth, 

over the Ferry i 
Portfmouth Ferry 

Rice 3 
York Emerfon & 

Preble 9 
ditto Sewall&Wyer 5 
ditto Cole II 

Kennebunk Bernard 

& Jaffry 4 
Biddeford Hooper 9 

ditto Spring 

Pepperelbo. Bradbury 4 

Scarborough Burbank i 

ditto Milikin 2 

ditto Harmen 2 

ditto Marfli 2 

Falmouth Broad 4 

ditto Pollard 4 

Portland Motley, 

Greele & Huflon 4 
New-Cafco Bucknam 7 
North Yarmouth 

Loring 6 
ditto Elwell 2 

Freeport Cummings 9 
Brunfvvick Chafe 5 

Brunfvvick Falls Stone 5 
Bath Lambert 12 

Herndell's Ferry 2 

Wifcaffet Whittier 11 



New-Caftle Ferry 

Avery 5 

ditto Nichols 2 

Nobleborough Huffey 5 
Waldoborough Reed 2 

ditto Sampfon 7 

Cufhing Packard 9 

St. George's Ferry i 
Camden Gregory 7 

Maduncook 

M'Clathry 7 
Duck Trap Ulmer 7 
Belfart Mitchell 12 

Frankfort Black 12 

The Ferry i 

Blue Hill Parker 13 

ditto Patten 7 

Union River Milliken 7 
Kilkenny Gookins 6 
Gouldfboro' Jones 19 
Machias Longfellow 40 

35S 



From Bojlcm to Pajjfama- 


quoddy. 




To Salem 


IS 


Ipfwich 


12 


Newburv-Port 


12 


Portfmouth 


22 


York 


12 


Wells 


16 


Biddeford 


14 


Portland 


18 


N. Yarmouth 


ii; 


Brunfwick 


IS 


Bath 


12 


Wifcaffet 


n 


Penobfcot 


70 


Frenchman's Bay 


42 


Machias 


40 


Paffamaquoddy 


4S 



376 

Middle Road to Hart- 
ford and New Have7i. 
Dedham Ames 11 

ditto Colburn 3 

Medfield Clark 6 

Medway Richardfon 5 
Bellingham Smith 6 
Milford Penniman 4 
Mendon Miller and 
Fuller 2 



Uxbridge Taft 6 

Douglafs Whipple 5 
Thompfon Jacobs 7 

ditto Nichols 

Pomfret Grofvenor 7 
Aibford Sprii.g 7 

ditto Perkins 

ditto Clark 2 

Wilmington Utley 4 
Mansfield Dunham 4 
Coventry Kimball 6 
E. Hartford Wood- 
bridge 6 

ditto Little 9 

Hartford Bull i 

Weathersfield Wright 4 
Worthington Riley 9 
Meriden Robinfon 6 
Wallingford Carring- 

ton 4 
North-Haven Ives 5 
New-Haven Nichols 
and Butler 8 

14: 



Weftern Poft-Road to 
Hartford and Ar 
York, according to the 
new meafurement. 
Cambridge Brown 3 
Watertown Willing- 
ton 4 
Weflon Flagg 8 

Sudbury Howe 5 

ditto Howe 5 

Marlboro' Williams 6 
Northboro' Munroe 5 
Shrewfbury Peafe 4 
Worcefler Mower 8 
Leicefler Hobart 6 

Spencer Mafons 5 

Brookfield Draper 3 
Weftern Blair 5 

Palmer Bates 9 

WilbrahamGrofvenor 4 
Springfield Williams 10 
Suffield Sykes 10 

Windfor Picket 7 

Allen 7 

Hartford Lee 3 

Weathersfield Wil- 
liams ID 
Middleton tjohnfon 8 



Durham tCanfield 6ICrown-Point 

Wallingsford tCar- Willltorough 

rington S Fort St. John 
North-Haven Ives 6 Le Prairie 
Xew-Haven tBrown 7 Montreal 
Miltord Clarke 10 Trois Rivieres 

Stratford Ferr}- Gillet 2 Quebec 
Stratford tLovejoy 2 
Fairfield tPennfield 10 
Greenfarms Paflel S 

Xorwalk 
Stamford 
Horfeneck 
Rye 
Maroneck Horton 4 Belcher Town 



Horton 4 
Xew-Rochel Williams 4 
Eall-Cherter Gyon 4 
Kinglbury 
Harlem 
New-York 



15'Peterfham Dickerfon 2 
20 ditto Ward i 

60 Orange Cady 6 

16 ditto Mayo 1 

6 Warwick Pomeroy 7 
90 South Road 5 

SoJNorthlield Hunt, 

! Whitnev&Doolittle, 

50S ' N. R. S 

Hinfdale Howe S 

tReed 4 From Bojlon to ^/^zwr Brattleboro'Dickeri"on6 

tWebb 9 on the Hartford A\'(2iV.,Marlbro' Stockwell 4 

tKnapp 6 Wellern Blair 73! ditto Whitney 6 

tQuintard 6 Ware Quintin 6 Wilmington Cook 4 



tHoyt 4 



ditto Thompfon 



Dunbar 7 Reedllioro' Hartwell 6 

White 6 ditto 4 

Warner 3 Woodford Scott 5 

Bennington Dewav, 



254 

N. B. W^here the 
Mail 5tage flops, the 
names of the Inkeepers 
are marked thus [t]. 



To Albany and Quebec. 
Springfield Parfons 96 
Over the river to Ely's 



Wertheld 

ditto 
Plandford 
Greenwood 

ditto 



Clap 7 

Emerfon 3 

Knox 6 

Rowley 6 

Emerfon t, 



Tyrinyham Chad wick 7 

Great-Barrington 

Root 9 
ditto Whiting i 

Egremont Hicks 4 

Nobletown Cowles 4 
ditto Mackinftry 3 
ditto Ray 3 

Stonehole Hoggaboom 3 

Kinderhook 
ditto 



F"ay, Grifwold and 
Hathaway 7 



Hadley 

do. 
Halley 5 X. Hampton 
tBeckman 9 Pomeroy 3 

do. Edwards 5 

Cherterfield Merrick 7 
Worthington Fitch 6 
Patridgefield Badger 8 

do. Whitmg 3 Poft-Road to Wind/or, 

Dalton Waterman 3 ( J'erniont.) 

Pittsfield Allen 6. [From Springfield]. 

Hancock Broad 5|Springfield Williams 50 

Xew Lebanon |Upper Ferry i 



Springs 2i WetlSpringfieldMiller7 
Canaan Jones 2'X'^orthampton Lyman 6 

Stevenftown Bufh 7' ditto Pomeroy 5 

Schoodick Strong 6 Hatfield White 4 

do. McKowns 9 Whately Gad Smith 6 

Green Bufh IDeertield Hoyt S 

Van Haden 2|Greenlield Willard 3 
Albany Ferry 3I .Munn \ 

Albany 1 Barnardfton Alverd ii^ 

Brattlebo. Dickerfon lO: 

173 Putney Goodwin 11 j 

i Wellminrter Spooner 10 

Road to Peterfluim and Walpole Bridge 

Bennington. Charlellown 



Goofe 4 Worcefter 
Voubars i Holden 



, No. 4 

Willard 7 
Hubbard 7 
Conant 11 

160 



Shrewfbury Peafe 40 
ditto Culhen i Claremont 

Bigelow 4 Windfor 
Parker 3 
ditto Fitch 2 ditto Abbot 3 

Albany Ferry 8 ditto Davis i 

Halfmoon 12 Rutland Wood 4 Road from Bojion to 

Stillwater 13 ditto Henry il Keene '\\\ Xew-Havip- 

Saratoga 12 Oakham Kelley 5 Jhire. 

Fort Edward 20 Barre X'urfe 4 To Cambridge Brown 3 

Lake-George 14 ditto Smith 2 Le.xington Munroe 8 

Ticonderoga 3oiPeterlham Peckham 5'Concord Richardfon S| 



Littleton Redder g 

Groton Richardl'on lo 
Warren 9 

Townfend Stone i 

Jaffray Prefect 15 

Part of New-Ipfwich 

MuUiken 5 
Marlborough Sweet- 
ie r, Lon2;ley 13 
Keene Wells & Ed- 
wards 6 

From Keene in N'e'w- 
HumpJJiire to Dart- 
viouth-ColIes^e 
To Walpole Milliards 14 

Reddington 2\ 

Charlertovvn Hunt 5^ 

Allen 4 

Claremont Stearnes 11 
Windlbr Pettes 7 

Hartland Ferry 9 

Dartmouth College 
Brewfter, Dewey 9 



Lexington 

Lincoln 

Concord 

Stow 
Bolton 
Lancat'ter 
Leominlter 



Munroe 4 

Benjamin 5 

Wyman & 

Paine 4 

Ruffell S 

Homer 6 

Williams 1; 

Hale 8 

47 



From Bojlon to Groton, 
on the Leominjier 
Road. 
To Concord Wyman 
& Paine 20 
Kidiler 8 
Richardlon 8 



Littleton 
Groton 



-,6 



From Bojion to Savannah 
in Geoixid, Poft-Road. 



ditto 
Cumberland 



Road from IVorceJlcr to 

Proz'idcnce. 
From the Court Houfe 

to Harrington's 3 
Grafton Drury 3 

ditto Woodsor Barnes 5 
Upton Kinglley 4 

Mendon Miller & 

Fuller 6 
Aldrich 6 
Fifk or 
Lovet 6 
ditto Jenks 4 

ditto Whipple 2 

Smilhfield Aldrich i 
North Providence 

Winllow 4 
Providence Thayer i 

45 

From Bojlon to Leomin- 
jier. 
To Cambridge 

Brown 3 
Menotomy Whitman 4 



To Worcefter 

Springfield 

Hartford in Conn. 

Middleton 

New Haven 

Stratford 

Fairfield 

Norwalk 

Stanford 

Kiiiglbridge 

New York 

Newark 

Elizabethtown 

Bridgetown 

Woodbridge 

New Bruniwick 

Princetown 

Trenton 

Briftol 

Philadelphia 

Chefter 

Wilmington 

Chriftiana Bridge 

Ellfton 

Charleftown 

Haver de Grace 

Hertford 

Baltimore 

Bladcnihurg 

Alexandria 



48 
48 
28 

14 
26 

14 

8 

12 

10 

30 

14 

9 

6 

6 

4 
10 
18 
12 
10 
20 
16 

13 
II 

ID 

ID 

6 

12 

25 
38 
16 

504 



To Alexandria 
Colchefter 
Dumfries 
Fred crick fl)urg 
Bowling Green 
Hanover 
Richmond 
IVterlburg 
Halifax 
Tarlburg 
Smith field 
Fayetteville 
Greeno 
Campden 
Columbia 
Cambridge 
Augufta 
Savannah 



504 
16 
12 
25 



25 
75 
37 
60 

50 

75 
55 
35 
So 

50 
120 

1288 



From Philadelphia 
to JVa/hingfon, via 
Lancajh'i: 
To Buck Tav. 11 

Warren Tavern 12 

Downing's 10 

Waggon&Whitaker's 8 
M'Cleland's 9 

Brefsler's 9 

Lancafter Court Houfe 
Slough 7 
Wright's Ferry 11 

Over Sufquehannah i 
To Yorkt. Sponglen 1 1 
Paradife 9 

I lanover Eckelburgus 9 

MARYLAND. 

Tawny town Crapfter 16 

Pine Creek Cookerly 12 

Frederickto.Kimball 13 

Tillard 9 

Seneca i i 

Montgomery Court H. 

Ogle 10 

Georgetown Suter 12 

Wafhington, to the 

Capitol 3 

'93 
From Philadelphia to 

Bethlehem. 
To Germantown 

Sayers 8 



Weaver 12 

Seller 11 

Quakertown Roberts 6 

Cooper 7 

Bethlehem 8 

52 



To BethUJiem,\\2i A'rw- 
Yark. 

New-York to Newark 9 
Springfield 7 

Scotch Plains 16 

Bound Brook 
SomerfetCourtHoufeS 
Reading 1 1 

Grandiner's Mills 9 
Hickery's Tavern 4 
M'Henry's 8 

Eaftown 1 2 

Bethlehem S 

92 



Road from Fijhkill to 
the Ohio River. 

From Fiflikill to the 

Ferry 5 
Over the Ferry to 

Newboro' 2 
Bethlehem 

Edmondfon 4 
Bloomingfgrove Go'id- 

fmith 8 
Chefter Gilverton 8 
Warwick Smith 9 



Wantage Hinchman 7 
ditto Randall 8 

Suffex Court-Houfe 

Willis 14 
Hardwick Goble 5 
Old Moravian town 

Gambol 1 1 
Oxford White 12 

Eaftown Shannon 10 
Bethlehem Elbert 12 
Allenftown Miller 6 
Mexetony Kemp 16! 
Reading Zoll iS 

Womminftown Wick- 

erlane 13 
Merriltown Bulmas 9 
Lebanon Shingle 7 
Millerltown Rice 5 
Humblefto\\Ti Lin- 
coln 12 
River Succetarra i 
Harrilburgh (upon the 
Sufquehanna) Grimes 8 
Carlitle Fofter 16 

ditto Alexander 7 
ditto Maccracken 7 
Shippintboro' Rippy 7 
Clark's Gap Cooper 10 
Over the Blue ^loun- 
tain to Skinner's 3 
Over the Path Valley 
andTuscarora Moun- 
tains tothe Burnt Cab- 
ins Jemnierfon 8 
Fort-Littleton Bird 4 
Foot of Skillinghill 

Panther 10 
Juncita Martin 9 

Bedford Wirth 14 



Fork of the old Penn- 
fylvania and Glade ! 
Roads Bonnet 4 

Foot of Uryridge Mac- 

cracken or Wirth 3 
Medfkar 6 

Hew's Camping- 
Ground Ditty 5 
Foot of Alleghany 
Grindall 6 
Black 7 
Colpenny 9 
Brake 5 



Glades 
ditto 
ditto 
Foot of Laurel hill 

Shaver i 

FhlilTjury 7 

Carnes 3 

Cherry 7 

Mount Pleafant 

Knuby 3 
Thomlbn 5 
Shumral's Ferry at the 
Youghiegany River, 
or Bud's Ferry, 2 miles 
further up 10 

Patterlbn 3 
Devore's Ferry at the 
Monongahela 

Patterfon 9 
Walhington C. H. 

Maccarmick 11 
Well's Mills 16 

Coxe'sfort on the fouth- 
ern Banks of the Ohio ic 
Down the Ohio to the 
mouth of the Mulkin- 
gum 95 

5r4 



BOOKS AND STAriONARY. 



JOHN WEST, 

At his Book-Store, No. 75, Cornhill, BoJIon, 

TZ'EEPS conftantly for Sale, a well-afforted and large Col- 
-^^ lection of BOOKS, in everv Branch of Literature. A!fi\ Bibles, 
Teftaments Pfalters, Spelling-Books of every kind, Pfalm-Books, Prim- 
ers, &c. bv the grofs, dozen, or fingle ; together with every Article in 
the STATIONARY line; with "all which Country Merchants and 
others may be fupplied, WhoLfah- or Retail. 

t:^^ Social and Private Libraries fupplied on reafonable terms. 



HAVE AN EYE TO THE MOON! 

THE moon, as everybody knows, was formerly 
thought to have a constant and powerful effect on 
men and things. This article of faith was uni- 
versal and there is no occasion to dwell upon its antiquity. 
It has left plain traces upon our language in moon-calf for 
" monster," moonstruck, and mootiing, as well as in lunatic. 
As Othello said — 

It is the very error of the moon : 

She comes more near the earth than she was wont, 

And makes men mad. 

Of the significance of the moon's place in medical treat- 
ment enough has already been said in our chapter on the 
famous Anatomy, — that grotesque figure encircled by 
the signs of the zodiac which was once regarded as in- 
dispensable in an almanac.^ 

In particular, the waxing and waning of the moon, con- 
nected as it is with the movements of the tides, was be- 
lieved to exercise a sympathetic influence over all nature, 
animate and inanimate. Remnants of these fancies may 
even now be discovered in the folk-lore of New England. 
There are mothers who still prefer to cut their children's 
hair in the increase of the moon, that it may grow more 
luxuriantly; and some farmers must still follow the same 
rule in killing their pigs, in order that the pork may swell, 
rather than shrink, in the barrel or the kettle. 

Mr. Thomas as we have seen on other occasions, was 

1 See pp. 53 ff., above. 

20 



306 THE OLD farmer's ALM.\NACK 

disposed to attach little importance to this kind of natural 
philosophy. The earlier numbers of the Almanac give it 
scanty recognition, and there is a suspicion of good- 
humored banter in such allusions as he makes to the 
subject. As time goes on, the irony becomes more obvi- 
ous, and before long the whole matter is ignored. A few 
extracts from the Farmer's Calendar will show how he felt 
about the moon. They will have some interest for ama- 
teurs of folk-lore, and, indeed, for all who care for the 
significant little things of history. 

1794. January 14. Kill your winter pork and beef, and it 
will enlarge while cooking. 

1794. April 13. A good time in the moon to sow hemp and 
flax, if your ground be not too wet. 

1795. J-inuary 5. Pork and beef kill for winter's use, to have 
it increase while cooking. 

1799. January 6. At this quarter of the moon cut fire-wood, 
to prevent its snapping. 

1799. April S. Wheat, sown at this quarter of the moon, is 
said not to be subject to smutting. 

iSoo. August 19. Mo'lC bushes! mow bushes now! if you 
have any faith in the influence of the moon on them. 

1 80 1. September 12. Moon-arians have not neglected haul- 
ing up and destroying pernicious weeds before this day of the 
month ! 

1804. August 22. Mow bushes, and kill them if you can, in 
the old moon, sign in heart, &c. 

1S14. January 'I. Kill your winter pork, which I presume by 
this time is fat and plump from good keeping. 

The entry last quoted, we observe, is perfectly non- 
committal. We cannot be sure that the author was think- 
ing of the moon at all. In 1803, however, there is a rather 
pretty bit of irony, which shows how he regarded the 
" Moon-arians " : — 



HAVE AN EYE TO THE MOON ! 307 

1803. January 18. Old Experience says, (and she generally 
speaks the truth) that pork, killed about this time, will always 
come out of the pot as large as when it was put in. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the influ- 
ence of the moon on animal and vegetable life was not 
merely an article of faith among the ignorant. It was 
an accepted tenet of science, though there was some doubt 
as to the precise limits of this influence. Cotton Mather, 
perhaps, will hardly be allowed to "qualify as an expert" 
— though his reputation for exceptional credulity comes 
rather from his having put himself on record than from 
any peculiarity in his mental temper. But no one will 
deny that Robert Boyle, the founder of the Royal Society, 
the improver of the air-pump, and the discoverer of Boyle's 
Law of the elasticity of gases, was a genuinely scientific 
personage. Mather writes : — 

One Abigail Eliot had an iron struck into her head, which drew 
out part of her brains with it : a silver plate she afterwards wore 
on her skull where the orifice remain'd as big as an half crown. 
The brains left in the child's head would swell and swage, accord- 
ing to the tides ; her intellectuals were not hurt by this disaster ; 
and she liv'd to be a mother of several children.^ 

And Boyle records " an odd observation about the in- 
fluence of the moon" in the following terms: — 

I know an intelligent person, that having, by a very dangerous 
fall, so broken his head, that divers large pieces of his skull were 
taken out, as I could easily perceive by the wide scars, that still 
remain ; answered me, that for divers months, that he lay under 
the chirurgeons hands, he constantly observed, that about full 
moon, there would be extraordinary prickings and shootings in 
the wounded parts of his head, as if the meninges were stretched 

1 Magnalia, book vi, chap. 2, ed. 1853, H, 356. 



308 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

or pressed against the rugged parts of the broken skull ; and this 
with so much pain, as would for two or three nights hinder his 
sleep, of which at all other times of the moon he used to enjoy 
a competency. And this gentleman added, that the chirurgeons, 
(for he had three or four at once) obser%-ed from month to 
month, as well as he, the operation of the full moon upon his 
head, informing him, that they then manifestly perceived an 
expansion or intumescence of his brain, which appeared not at 
all at the new moon, (for that I particularly asked) nor was he 
then obnoxious to the forementioned pricking pains.^ 

Toward the end of the eighteenth century it was gen- 
erally held by physicians that the new or full moon, or the 
approach to the new or full moon, was a powerful exciting 
cause of fever.- It had also been observed that persons 
in extreme age usually died either at the new or at the full 
moon, though it is not clear how this was brought into 
accord with the usual theories of the moon's increase.^ 

If we pass over to the vegetable kingdom, we have a 
first-rate witness in the Rev. Dr. Samuel Deane (1733- 
18 14), for many years pastor of the First Church at Port- 
land, Maine. Dr. Deane was neither superstitious nor 
opinionated. He was a man of learning, singularly clear- 
headed, and moderate always. Besides, he was a wit. 
When he was a tutor at Harvard College, we are told, he 
ventured a harmless jest. A visitor, to whom he was ex- 
hibiting the curiosities in the College Museum, noticed a 
long rusty sword, and asked to whom it had belonged. " I 
believe," replied Mr. Deane, " that it was the sword with 
which Balaam threatened to kill his ass." " But," objected 
the stranger, " Balaam had no sword ; he only wished for 
one." "Oh, true," said Mr. Deane, '"that is the one he 

1 Experimenta et Observationes Physicae, chap. 5, experiment 4; Works, 
ed. Birch, V, 96. 

^ See Gentiem.in's ^Llga2ine, 17S7. LVH. 340. 
3 Gentleman's Magazine, 1S03, LXXIII, looi. 



HAVE AN EYE TO THE MOON ! 309 

wished for." ^ This anecdote is traditional, but there is 
another specimen of the doctor's humor which we have 
in his own handwriting. Portland (then Falmouth) was 
burned by the British naval commander Mowat in 1775. 
ihere was intense indignation, and Dr. Deane suggested, 
as an inscription for a plan of the town published shortly 
after, a brief statement of the facts, in which Captain 
Mowat is described as " that execrable scoundrel and 
monster of ingratitude." At the end of the letter in 
which he expresses these sentiments, Dr. Deane admits a 
possible emendation : " If you do not like the words 
execrable scoundrel, you may say, infamous incendiary, or 
what you please." ^ 

Like most New England ministers of the time. Dr. 
Deane was a practical farmer. He also kept a diary, on 
the blank pages of interleaved almanacs, and under the 
year 1767 we read: — "May 4. I planted short beans, 
sowed cauliflowers and apple seeds, being increase of the 
moon. 5. I planted corn and potatoes, increase of the 
moon."^ 

But Dr. Deane was not merely a practical farmer. He 
was a close student of agriculture. In 1790 he issued an 
octavo called The New England Farmer, or Georgical 
Dictionary, which was accurately described in the pro- 
spectus as " a more complete system of husbandry than 
has been before published in so small a compass," and as 
" the only one that has been attempted in this country, or 
that is adapted to its circumstances." This was a work 
of great merit, and enjoyed a continuous popularity of 
about fifty years. Here is Dr. Deane's method of keeping 
apples in good condition : — 

1 Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith, and the Rev. Samuel Deane. ed. 
by Wm. Willis, Portland, 1849, P- 292. 

2 The same, p. 341, note. 
' The same, p. 321. 



310 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

The secret of preserving them through the winter, in a sound 
state, is of no small importance. Some say, that shutting them 
up in tight casks is an effectual method ; and it seems probable ; 
for they soon rot in open air. 

But an easier method, and which has recommended itself to 
me by the experience of several years, is as follows : — I gather 
them about noon, on the day of the full of the moon, which hap- 
pens in the latter part of September, or beginning of October. 
Then spread them in a chamber, or garret, where they lie till 
about the last of November. Then, at a time when the weather 
is dry, remove them into casks, or boxes, in the cellar, out of the 
way of the frost ; but I prefer a cool part of the cellar. With 
this management, I find I can keep them till the last of May, so 
well that not one in fifty will rot. 

Some may think it whimsical to gather them on the day above 
mentioned. But, as we know both animals and vegetables are 
influenced by the moon in some cases, why may we not suppose 
a greater quantity of spirit is sent up into the fruit, when the 
attraction of the heavenly bodies is greatest? If so, I gather my 
apples at the time of their greatest perfection, when they have 
most in them that tends to their preservation. — I suspect that 
the day of the moon's conjunction with the sun may answer as 
well ; but I have not had experience of it. The same caution, I 
doubt not, should be observed in gathering other fruits, and even 
apples for cyder : But I have not proved it by experiments.^ 

This passage, which must be accepted as the doctrine of 
a scientific farmer at the close of the eighteenth century, 
was reproduced, with due acknowledgments, in the Al- 
manac for 1796, where it appears on the back of the 
title-page. 

Mr. Thomas, it will be remembered, suggested mowing 
bushes, and " killing them if you can," in the old moon, 
" sign in heart." There is a suspicion of raillery in these 

1 The New England Farmer, Worcester, 1790, p. 12 ; 2d ed., 1797, p. 14. 



HAVE AN EYE TO THE MOON I 3 I I 

words, but the principle which they embody had long 
been accepted among farmers. One of the best accredited 
writers on agriculture in the eighteenth century was the 
Rev. Jared Eliot of Killingly, Connecticut. In the first of 
his Essays on Field-Husbandry, Mr. Eliot remarks that 
he has been " told by an experienc'd Farmer, that if you 
girdle Trees, or cut Brush in the Months o{ May, June and 
July, in the Old of the Moon, that Day the Sign removes 
out of the Foot into the Head, especially if the Day be 
cloudy, it will kill almost all before it." ^ Mr. Eliot, how- 
ever, refused to be convinced without testing the matter. 
" Experience," he observes, " is Authority, to whom we 
are to submit, I am not forward to believe without Trial." 
This was in 1747. The subject was felt to be of some 
moment. Farmers had to clear their land, and under- 
brush was a great nuisance and hard to kill. Accordingly, 
some five years later, we have the results of an experiment, 
and they are curious enough to give in Mr. Eliot's own 
words. Any attempt to condense would destroy the indi- 
viduality of his style. He has now found "certain Times 
for cutting Bushes, which [are] more effectual for their 
Destruction than any yet discovered "' : — 

The Times are in the Months oi June, July and August ; in 
the old Moon that Day the Sign is in the Heart : It will not always 
happen every Month ; it happens so but once this Year, and that 
proves to be on Sunday. Last Year in June or July, I forgot 
which, I sent a Man to make Trial ; in going to the Place, some 
of the Neighbours understanding by him the Business he was 
going about, and the Reason of his going at that Point of Time, 
they also went to their Land, and cut Bushes also on that Day ; 
their's were tall Bushes that had never been cut ; mine were short 
bushes such as had been often cut, but to no Purpose, without it 
was to increase their Number : The Consequence was, that in 

1 Essays upon Field-Husbandry in New-England, Boston, 1760, p. 16. 



312 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

every Place it killed so universally, that there is not left alive, 
scarce one in a hundred ; the Trial was made in three or four 
Places on that same Day. In July or August, on the critical 
Day, another Swamp was cut, the Brush was, the greatest Part 
of it, Swamp Button Wood, the most difificult to subdue of any 
Wood I know ; I have been lately to see it, and find the Destruc- 
tion of these Bushes are not so universal as among Alders and 
other Sorts of Growth ; it is hard to say how many remain alive, 
it may be one third or a quarter Part ; all that I can say, with 
Certainty, is that they are now few, compared with what there 
was last Year : I did not know but that those which are alive, 
might be such as came up since ; but upon Examination, I 
found the last Year's Stumps, and could plainly see where they 
had been cut of; this was not because the Season was better 
when there was such Success ; for in this last mentioned Piece of 
Swamp, there were sundry Spots of Alders and other Sorts of 
Bushes, they seem to be as universally killed as those before men- 
tioned : The Reason why there was not the same Success attend- 
ing the cutting these Button Bushes as the other Sorts, I suppose 
to be from the stubborn Nature of this Kind, which would yield 
to no cutting ; the ordinary Way has been to dig or plough it up 
by the Roots ; so that considering the Nature of this Bush, I have 
had great Success ; the Ground being very boggy, those who 
mowed them, were obliged to cut them very high, which was 
another Disadvantage. 

To show such a Regard to the Signs, may incur the Imputa- 
tion of Ignorance or Superstition ; for the Learned know well 
enough, that the Division of the Zodiac into Twelve Signs, and 
the appropriating these to the several Parts of the animal Body, 
is not the Work of Nature, but of Art, contrived by Astronomers 
for Convenience. It is also as well known, that the Moon's 
Attraction hath great Influence on all Fluids. 

It is also well known to Farmers, that there are Times when 
Bushes, if cut at such a Time, will universally die. A Regard to 
the Sign, as it serveth to point out and direct to the proper Time, 
so it becomes worthy of Observation. 



HAVE AN EYE TO THE MOON ! 313 

If Farmers attend the Time with Care, and employ Hands on 
those Days, they will find their Account in it.^ 

This passage from " the curious and learned Dr. Elliot," 
as Mr. Thomas calls him, is inserted in the Almanac for 
1803, but without any comment, whether favorable or 
adverse. 

In 1805 Mr. Thomas prints a letter from an unknown 
correspondent, whose signature is P. S. and who describes 
himself as " an old Ploughjogger." It contains an obser- 
vation with regard to the effect of the moon on fruit trees 
which may profitably be compared with the principles 
laid down by Mr. Deane. Mr. Thomas does not say what 
he thinks of the Ploughjogger's theory. 

There is one thing however, I have always admired that you, or 
some other writer on fruit trees never have mentioned, though I 
think it well worth observing, which is, setting fruit trees in the old 
of the moon, that they never thrive so well, and it is rare that any 
come to perfection, but, generally turn to shrubs or die in a few 
years. — I am. Sir, an old farmer, upwards of seventy-five years 
of age, and this I have proved by my own experience, as well as 
by observing it of others, whom I could point out, but I think it 
needless. Apple trees as well as all other fruit trees should be 
set out in the new of the moon, and the top cut down until there 
are no more limbs on the top than roots on the bottom, a tree 
thus pruned will grow more in four years than one that is not, 
will do in ten. I have another observation. Sir, to make, which 
is, on the cutting and preserving scions for grafting ; these should 
be taken off in the last of March and tied in a bundle, and buried 
in the ground five and six inches deep, there to remain until the 
bud begins to open, and the moon changes, then they should be 
taken up and the dirt washed off in cold water, when they are 
fit for grafting ; these will be plump and grow four times as well 
as those that have been lying in a cellar and become wilted. 

1 Essays, as above, pp. 123-4. 



314 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

There is nothing strange in the doctrines of Dr. Deane, 
Mr, Eliot, and the old Ploughjogger. They are not off- 
shoots of superstition, but merely a slight aberration of 
science. We must not confuse the attitude of these sober 
experimenters with the whimsies of astrological theorists a 
century before, to whom the planets were the lords of life 
and death, of growth and decay, and who held that the 
wholesomeness and medicinal virtue of plants depended 
as well on the planet under which they were gathered as 
on that under which they were eaten or administered to 
the patient. Such a philosopher was Israel Hiibner, whose 
Mystery of Seals, Herbs, and Stones, was translated by 
one B. Clayton, and published at London in 1698. Hiibner 
was Professor of Mathematics in the University of Erfurt, 
and his work is full of perverse learning. Lunar diseases, 
according to his system, were ulcers, measles and spots 
on the face, cataracts, epilepsy, and dysentery. Among 
herbs, roots, and trees under the especial influence of the 
moon he includes beans, cabbages, cucumbers, lettuce, 
mandrake, pompions (i. e. pumpkins), plum trees, and 
watercresses. On the tenth of March, 1698, "at 31 min- 
utes past 7 at Night, the Moon is in Mid-Heaven with 31 
Testimonies. At which time you must cut up or gather 
the Herbs and Roots of the Moon ; you may provide your 
self half an hour before-hand, but the Herb or Root must 
be cut or gathered at 31 minutes past Seven, and put into 
a pale, white or grey coloured Silk bag, and kept till Occa- 
sion serves." How these vagaries were received may be 
inferred from a commendatory poem by Gadbury, the 
astrologer and almanac-maker, which is prefixed to Clay- 
ton's volume, and which declares that "the World is gov- 
ern'd by Stars Energy " and that every physician " must 
have a Warrant from the spangled Skies " ! 



WHAT TO READ 

MR. THOMAS does not neglect to recommend 
suitable reading to the farmer. His Calendars 
for December contain many items of this sort, 
suitably intermingled with directions for threshing, putting 
sleds and sleighs in order, and the several occupations 
appropriate to the winter season. At other seasons the 
farmer had enough to do in attending to the diversified 
agriculture of a time when every estate was its own home 
market and aimed at being sufficient unto itself so far as 
the products of the climate would allow. A sample of Mr. 
Thomas's literary advice may be seen in his very first 
number (1793) : — 

Put your sleds & sleighs in order. 

Complete your thrashing. 

Visit your barns often. 

See that your cellars are well stored with good cider, that 
wholesome and cheering liquor, which is the product of your 
own farms : No man is to be pitied, that cannot enjoy himself or 
his friend, over a pot of good cider, the product of his own 
country, and perhaps his own farm ; which suits both his consti- 
tution and his pocket, much better than West-India spirit. 

Now comes on the long and social winter evenings, when the 
farmer may enjoy himself, and instruct and entertain his family 
by reading some useful books, of which he will do well in pre- 
paring a select number. The following I should recommend, as 
books worthy the perusal of every American. — Ramsay's History 
of the American Revolution ; Morse's Geography ; a«^/ Belknap's 
History of New- Hampshire. 



3l6 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Adjust your accounts ; see that your expenditures do not 
exceed your incomes. 

And again, in 1795, we find: — 

The winter affords many enjoyment [s] to mankind in general, 
but to no one class of men more, than to the industrious husband- 
man, who now sets down at leisure surrounded by all the com- 
forts and necessaries of life pleasingly spending the long winter's 
evenings in social converse as by reading some useful and enter- 
taining author. " Reading and conversation are, to winter, what 
flowers are to the spring, and fruits are to autumn. They are 
the boast of the season. Superior to vernal joys, these perma- 
nent pleasures of the intellect are in vigor, when those are faded 
and no more." 

Another specimen may be taken from the Almanac for 
1814: — 

It is all important that ever}' man should know the history 
and geography of his own country. — Yet a vast many of us hardly 
know our right hand from our left in this respect. What more 
profitable employment can you have during the long winter 
evenings than reading Hutchinson's history of Massachusetts 
— Belknap's New-Hampshire — Williams's Vermont — Life of 
Gen. Washington — American Revolution, Morses' and other 
Geographies, &c. 

The farmer and his family are not to be limited to so 
solid a diet as this paragraph prescribes. At the end of 
December, 1794, we read: "The Life of Dr. Franklin, I 
would recommend for the amusement of winter evenings, 
also the Life of Baron Trenck." Franklin's Autobiography 
has become classic. The celebrated Baron Trenck, how- 
ever, has almost dropped out of sight, though he long 
remained a popular author with boys. His imprisonments 
and escapes from durance are still good reading. Many 



WHAT TO READ 317 

will remember the exciting moment when he was caught 
by the leg as he was just getting over the palisades that 
enclosed his prison. Trenck was regarded as altogether 
too worldly a writer for Sunday perusal. " Baron Trenck," 
writes Mr. Aldrich, in his Story of a Bad Boy, " Baron 
Trenck, who managed to escape from the fortress of Glatz, 
can't for the life of him get out of our sitting-room " closet 
on a Sunday. 

Mr. Thomas, it will be noticed, was inclined to recom- 
mend American authors. There had been much historical 
writing in this country, and geography, too, was a favorite 
pursuit in New England. As Dr. Benjamin Trumbull said, 
in his Century Sermon preached at North Haven, Con- 
necticut, on New Year's Day, 1801, when the Almanac 
was in its first decade, " by the assistance of the Reverend 
Dr. Morse's Universal Geography, and that of Dr. Dwight's 
for schools, school boys know more of geography now, 
than men did an hundred years ago; nay more than even 
the writers on geography knew at that period. Besides, 
several good histories of the colonies have been written 
during the last century, which have greatly increased their 
knowledge of each other, and acquainted the world more 
intimately with their affairs." ^ 

There was a large importation of books from England. 
Booksellers abounded in the country towns, and, what is 
more, in the last part of the eighteenth century and at the 
beginning of the nineteenth, there were local presses with- 
out number, and cheap copies of standard English authors 
bearing the imprint of Newburyport, Salem, New Bedford, 
Exeter, Brattleboro', and so on, were the order of the day. 
It was likewise a common practice for large publishers to 
sell books in sheets to the trade in the country, thus allow- 
ing them the profit on binding as well as the retail profit. 
The present centralization of the publishing business 

1 A Century Sermon, New Haven, 1801, p. 6. 



3l8 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

makes it rather difficult to appreciate the state of things a 
hundred years ago. 

Mr. Thomas was himself a bookseller, stationer, and 
bookbinder. The Almanac for 1797 contains an amazing 
list of what he offered for sale in the little town of Sterling. 
His Advertisement is reprinted at the end of this chapter. 
For poetry we have Akenside, Armstrong, Goldsmith, 
Milton, Thomson's Seasons, and Young's Night Thoughts, 
not to speak of the facetious Peter Pindar. Ovid's Art of 
Love is counterbalanced by the lyrics of Dr. Watts. There 
are also two miscellaneous collections of songs, — the 
Hive and the Skylark, and, that American verse may not 
be slighted, the Columbian Muse. Particular attention 
may be called to the blank- verse Thoughts in Prison by 
the vain and unfortunate Dr. William Dodd, who, after a 
brilliant career as a fashionable preacher, was hanged at 
Tyburn for forgery in 1777. He had been the tutor of 
Philip Stanhope, godson and successor of the famous Lord 
Chesterfield whose Letters are also in Mr. Thomas's list. 

Mr. Thomas's stock was well furnished with romances 
and novels. Fielding is represented by Tom Jones and 
Joseph Andrews ; Smollett by Roderick Random ; Sterne 
by the Sentimental Journey; Miss Burney by Evelina and 
Cecilia, — all of them now admitted to the rank of classics. 
For downright sensationalism we have Mrs. Radcliffe's 
Mysteries of Udolpho. Frigid and mechanical as its 
clumsy horrors seem to our jaded appetites, it gave our 
forefathers many thrills and was held to be unprofitable 
by the stricter sort. The venerable Dr. Jacob Bigelow, 
in his ninetieth year, remembered that, when he was a 
boy, his cousin, Mary Wilder, who was half-a-dozen years 
older than he, used to delight the children by telling them 
Mrs. Radcliffe's story. When he had spent an evening 
listening to The Mysteries of Udolpho, " he was afraid to 
be alone in the dark, and, on getting into bed, covered his 



WHAT TO READ 319 

head with the bedclothes in terror." ^ This was in 1798, 
or thereabout, the. very time that we are considering. 
Works by the same author to be found in the Sterling 
bookstore were A Sicilian Romance and The Romance of 
the Forest. 

Other works of fiction which Mr, Thomas had for sale 
were Desmond, by the once admired Charlotte Smith, 
Henry Brooke's interminable Fool of Quality, and Daniel 
Defoe's Religious Courtship. For children there was the 
highly correct Sandford and Merton. Dr. Johnson's Ras- 
selas was of course not lacking, nor were the lacrymose 
Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie and the same author's 
Julia de Roubigne and Man of the World, all unaccounta- 
bly popular in their time. More important was the Zeluco 
of Dr. John Moore, the father of the famous Sir John, 
which worked so powerfully on Byron, who calls the 
author an " acute and severe observer of mankind " ^ and 
says that he once meant Childe Harold for " a modern 
Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco."^ Mr. Thomas's cus- 
tomers could also be provided with copies of the Arabian 
Nights and of Robinson Crusoe. Obviously the citizens 
of Sterling had nothing to complain of, so far as food for 
the imagination was concerned. 

Sermons, works of theology, and books of devotion are 
numerous in Mr. Thomas's catalogue, as was to be ex- 
pected ; but he also had the Second Part of Paine's Age of 
Reason — an odd volume, perhaps, which had got stranded 
on his shelves. Is it generally known that Tom Paine was 
an early champion of that theory of education which sets 
modern literature in an unnatural opposition to ancient, 
and arrays the natural sciences against them both? His 

1 Memorials of Mary Wilder White, by Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, 
edited by Mary Wilder Tileston, Boston, 1903, pp. 23-24. 

2 Preface to Marino Faliero, Works, Poetry, ed. E. H. Coleridge, IV, 

334- 

^ Childe Harold, Addition to the Preface, Works, as above, II, 8. 



320 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

Age of Reason contains the following remarkable utter- 
ance on this subject : — 

As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead 
languages, all the useful books being already translated, the 
languages are become useless, and the time expended in teach- 
ing and in learning them is wasted. ... It is only in the living 
languages that new knowledge is to be found. . . . The best 
Greek linguist, that now exists, does not understand Greek so 
well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid ; and 
the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or milk- 
maid of the Romans ; and with the respect to pronunciation 
and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It would 
... be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the 
study of the dead languages and to make learning consist, as it 
originally did, in scientific knowledge.^ 

What we have seen of Mr. Thomas's sturdy Ameri- 
canism would lead us to expect that his shop would be 
well furnished with American books, and we are not sur- 
prised to find among those in his stock the works which 
he particularly commends in his Farmer's Calendar — 
Jeremy Belknap's History of New Hampshire, Jedediah 
Morse's Universal Geography, Lendrum's History of the 
American Revolution, and the Life of Dr. Franklin. Bel- 
knap's American Biography could also be had at Sterling, 
as well as Lee's Memoirs, Whitney's History of Worcester, 
and Williams's Vermont. 

There was also a considerable variety of books of travel 
— genuine and fictitious. It is hard to resist the tempta- 
tion to linger over this category; but we must content 
ourselves with a specimen or two. 

Carver's Travels must have been of absorbing interest 
to our grandfathers, and it is still consulted by the ethnolo- 
gist and the geographer. John Carver, who had been a 

1 Age of Reason, Part I, ed. London, 1818, p. 31. 



WHAT TO READ 321 

captain in the French and Indian War, set out from 
Boston in 1766 to explore the territory which had been 
added to the British possessions by the Treaty of Versailles 
in 1763. His design was ambitious in the highest degree. 
He confidently expected to reach the Pacific coast, and, 
had he succeeded in this, he meant to urge the govern- 
ment " to establish a post in some of those parts about the 
Straits of Annian, which, having been discovered by Sir 
Francis Drake, of course belong to the English." Such a 
post, he thought, would help to the discovery of the 
Northwest Passage. It is needless to say that Captain 
Carver failed to push his way to the Pacific ; but he never- 
theless accomplished a good deal. He got as far west as 
the Falls of St. Anthony and did some exploring on the 
north and east shores of Lake Superior. His narrative, 
which appeared in 1778, is full of life and motion, and well 
deserved a place on Mr. Thomas's shelves. A large por- 
tion is devoted to describing the manners and customs 
of the Indians, particularly those of the interior. One 
episode in this part of the book is of peculiar value. To 
illustrate the ferocity of the savages, Carver describes the 
massacre at Fort William Henry, in 1757. He had served 
as a volunteer among the provincials sent to strengthen 
the garrison. When the fort surrendered and the slaugh- 
ter began, he succeeded, — thanks to his strength, agility, 
and uncommon coolness, — in forcing his way through the 
Indians and gaining the shelter of the forest. After travel- 
ling for three days and nights without food he reached 
Fort Edward, where, as he rather quaintly observes, " with 
proper care my body soon recovered its wonted strength, 
and my mind, as far as the recollection of the late melan- 
choly events would permit, its usual composure."^ His 
rapid and vivid account of his escape takes high rank 
among authentic tales of adventure. 

1 Carver, Travels, London, 1778, p. 324. 
21 



322 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

The story of Philip Quarll, now almost forgotten, was a 
great favorite in the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- 
tury, and was reprinted in 1795, from the sixth London 
edition, by Joseph Belknap, at the Apollo Press, in Boston. 
This was the first American edition and was probably the 
form in which Mr. Thomas kept the book for sale. The 
title is of the good old-fashioned kind and gives a rather 
full account of the contents. It runs thus: — "The Her- 
mit: or, the Unparalleled Sufferings and Surprising Adven- 
tures of Philip Quarll, an Englishman : who was discovered 
by Mr. Dorrington, a British Merchant, upon an unin- 
habited Island, in the South-sea; where he lived about 
fifty years, without any human assistance." Mr. Dorring- 
ton, who, it need hardly be specified, is quite as fictitious a 
character as Quarll himself, found his hermit on a fertile 
island in the Pacific about seven leagues from the Ameri- 
can coast. Quarll was so well satisfied with his situation 
and mode of life that he refused to return to England, but 
he gave his visitor a parchment scroll which contained a 
full history of his life, both before and after the shipwreck 
which had left him, the sole survivor, in his rock-defended 
retreat. The first part of Quarll's biography is not very 
edifying. He was left an orphan at an early age and after 
some vicissitudes of fortune found himself in court on the 
charge of marrying three wives. He was undoubtedly 
guilty and was condemned to death. There were extenu- 
ating circumstances, however, and the king was graciously 
pleased to pardon him. He then embarked for Barbadoes, 
accompanied by his first wife, taking along with him a con- 
siderable quantity of " woolen manufacture and cutlery 
ware," which he had understood were "very good com- 
modities in those parts." The ship doubled Cape Horn 
and traded at several ports in Peru, Chili, and Mexico, 
intending to touch at Barbadoes on the return voyage. 
She was lost in a storm, however, and Quarll was washed 



WHAT TO READ 323 

ashore on his island, where, as we have seen, he was found 
after fifty years by the Bristol merchant. The second 
part of Quarll's biography is a poor imitation of Robinson 
Crusoe, with a tame monkey for Man Friday and certain 
wicked Frenchmen to play the part of Defoe's savages. 
Unlike Crusoe, Quarll became quite reconciled to his iso- 
lation, and we are led to infer that he ended his days in his 
lonesome paradise. 

Boyle's Voyages and Adventures is particularly recom- 
mended in Mr. Thomas's list as " full of various and 
amazing turns of fortune." But this little puff is not a bit 
of advertising on the bookseller's part. It is a literal ex- 
tract from the title-page, which again is of the old-fashioned 
sort, serving as a kind of table of contents to the volume.^ 
Nobody knows who wrote this rambling romance, — for it 
is pure fiction, though it has often been taken seriously. 
The recommendation in the title-page is honest enough. 
The book is fairly dizzy with " amazing turns of fortune." 
Boyle is a shipcaptain's son, and is apprenticed to a Lon- 
don watchmaker who " had a vast Trade, vended a great 
many Watches beyond Sea," After some odd experi- 
ences in London, the boy is packed ofi" to America by a 
perfidious uncle, who sends him on board an outward 
bound ship under the pretence of an errand. Luckily he 
had an inclination for the sea, but he had no fancy to be 
disposed of as a kind of slave, or little better, when he 
should reach the plantations, — a lot that he had only 
too much reason to expect, for it accorded well enough 

1 The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle, in several Parts 
of the World. Intermix'd with the Story of Mrs. Villars, an English Lady 
with whom he made his surprizing Escape from Barbary ; the History of an 
Italian Captive; and the Life of Don Pedro Aquilio, &c. Full of various 
and amazing Turns of Fortune. To which is added, The Voyage, Ship- 
wreck, and Miraculous Preservation of Richard Castleman, Gent. With a 
Description of the City of Philadelphia, and the Country of Pennsylvania. 
London, 1726. 



324 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

with the habits of the time. Before long, however, the 
ship fell in with a Barbary pirate, under the command of 
an Irish renegado, and, by curious chances, which it 
would take too long to particularize, he found himself on 
board the rover, in a rather ambiguous capacity, for 
he was neither captive nor passenger. The pirate captain 
treated him well, and, when they arrived at Soller, in 
Barbary, employed him as a gardener. The captain had 
adopted Moorish customs and had several wives and 
female slaves. Boyle fell in love with one of the slaves, 
an English woman named Villars, and contrived to escape 
with her, in the company of an Italian captive, whose 
story, as well as that of Mrs. Villars, is woven into the 
narrative. We cannot now follow Boyle through his 
varied fortunes, and must leave him, reluctantly, almost at 
the outset of his romantic career. The book does not 
break the promise made by the title-page. 

Among the political works which Mr. Thomas adver- 
tises, one's eye is caught by The Jockey Club, which must 
not be passed by in silence. 

The Jockey Club: or a Sketch of the Manners of the 
Age, is lively reading, and students of politics and social 
history still resort to it for amusement, if not for edifica- 
tion. In its earliest form, as published in 1792, it con- 
tained fifty characters (^with one more, for luck) of men 
who were at that time, for some reason or another, in the 
public eye, — many of them members of the Jockey Club, 
whence the title of the volume. It is abusive and scurri- 
lous to the last degree, — yet not perhaps more black- 
guardly than the general tone of the society which it 
professes to depict. The author prudently concealed his 
name, but is generally understood to have been Charles 
Pigot. As an additional precaution, he makes liberal use 
of dashes, — writing of the P[rinc]e of\V[ale]s, the h[eir] 
to the c[row]n, the B[ritis]h C[abine]t, Mr. F[o]x, and 



WHAT TO READ 325 

SO on ; but of course the lacunae were easily supplied by 
his readers, both in England and in America. And he had 
readers in plenty. A second and a third part were soon 
called for, and when the book was reprinted in New York 
in 1793 the publisher followed the tenth London edition. 
Pigot's attitude toward the Americans was enough to com- 
mend his book on this side of the water. He praises Fox 
warmly, though not without frankly admitting his weak 
points ; and one of his few completely favorable portraits 
is that of the D[uk]e of R[ichmon]d, whom he commends 
for " his unremitted, patriotic exertions, during the long 
process of the American war." These " were such as the 
utmost powers of panegyric are unequal to celebrate ; nor 
will his speech in the House of Lords, where he unequivo- 
cally and nobly asserted the rights of men and America's 
independence, even at the moment when Chatham was 
struck with death, be ever forgotten." His description of 
Colonel Tarleton must have been read with a good deal of 
satisfaction in this country when the passions of the Revo- 
lutionary War had not yet cooled. It is a fair sample both 
of the writer's style and of the spirit in which political 
pamphleteering was conducted : — 

Col. T . . n Veni, vidi, vici. 

OUR hero betrayed very early symptoms of romantic gallantry, 
and a brave martial spirit. A short time previous to his embark- 
ation for America, being one evening engaged with a party of his 
acquaintance at the Cocoa-tree, he greatly alarmed the company, 
by suddenly drawing his enormous sabre from the scabbard, and 
furiously exclaiming, " With this weapon I '11 cut off General 
Lee's head." We have heard, that he was concerned in the affair, 
when that officer was made prisoner, and believe that two or 
three unfortunate Americans actually fell victims to the Colonel's 
personal valor on the occasion. 

When he returned to his native country, escaped from the 



326 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

perils and dangers of his numberless campaigns, in which his 
humanity shone so eminently conspicuous, he thought to make 
a sudden and durable impression on the minds of his country- 
men, by an incessant relation of his extraordinary achievements. 
His countrymen were less sensible to his merit than he imagined. 
They did not listen with that attention or admiration that the gallant 
Colonel expected. The exploits of a pandor, a partizan, are ranked 
in the lowest degree of military merit ; and it had been more pru- 
dent on his part, to have omitted some instances of his valor, 
which have been thought rather tending to perfidy and cruelty. 
The Colonel, however, is a man of strict honor ; and woe to him 
who doubts it ! He is likewise member for Liverpool, and a noted 
parliamentary speechijier ; having particularly distinguished him- 
self in that cause, so congenial with his own heart, the rights of 
power, and usurpation against the rights of men. He is the 
strenuous, determined advocate of the Slave-trade, and hence he 
aspires to future success at Liverpool. 

But one must stop somewhere, and perhaps as well with 
Colonel Tarleton as another. Here is the whole Catalogue, 
which the studious reader may verify in any large library — 
for no small collection of modern books is likely to dupli- 
cate Mr. Thomas's variesrated stock. 



■I-+++-H-++-H-+-H-+++-I-H-++-I-H-++ I I M I I -H-H-H-++ I I I I I I I I I ++++++ 

ROBERT B. THOMAS, 

HAS FOR SALE AT HIS 

Book ^ Stationary Store^ 

IN Sterling, 

The following BOOKS ^ STATIONARY, 

TO WHICH ADDITIONS ARE CONSTANTLY MAKING 

ADAMS' View of Religions, American Preceptor, 
American J uftice, Art of Speaking, American Clerk's 
Magazine, Arillotle's Works, Alphonfo ^ Dalinda, 
Akenfide's dff Armitrong's Poems, Arabian Nights En- 
tertainment, 2 vol. 

Britifh Album, Baron Trenk, Boyle's Voyages Cff Ad- 
ventures, in feveral parts of the world^ full of various and 
ama%ing turns of fortune — Brown's Elements of Med- 
icine, Brydone's Tour, Bennet's Letters, Bruce's Trav- 
els abridged, Blair's Le6lures, 2 vol. do. abridged^ do. 
Sermons, 2 vol. Baxter's Call to the unconverted, Bof- 
ton's Fourfold State, Belknap's Hiftory of Newhamplhire, 
3 vol. do. American Biography, Bell on Ulcers, Buchan's 
Domeflic Medicine and Family Phyfician, very necejfary 
book in every family ; Baron Steuben's Exercifes, with 
plates^ Book Keeping, Bailey's Dictionary, Bibles, quar- 
to with 24 copperplates^ Apocraphy and Osterval's 
notes, do. Scotch and Englifti o£iavo^ do. frnall do. 

Carver's Travels in America, Cook's Voyages, 2 vol. 
do. abridged^ Complete Letter Writer, Cyrus' Travels, 
Cecilia, 3 vol. by Mifs Burney^ Clerk's Corderius, Chef- 
elden's Anatomy with plates^ Catechifm of Nature, for 
the uje of children ; jnuch information is contained in a fmall 
compafs — Chefterfield's Principles of Politenefs, Co- 
lumbian Mufe, Cullen's Practice of Phyfic 2 vol. do. 
Materia Medica, 

Dwight's Geography for children^ Dana's Selection, 
Dodd's Thoughts in Prifon, do. Refle6tion on Death, 
Doddridge's Rife cff Progrefs, do. on Regeneration, Def- 



mond, a novels by Charlotte Smith ; Dialogues of Devils. 

Enfield's Biographical Sermons, being difcourfes on 
the principal characters in fcripture ; Edward's Hiftory 
of Redemption, do. on Religious Affections, Evelina, 
2 vol. by Mifs Burney^ Economy of Life — Englifh Her- 
mit ; or the unparralled fufferings and Jurprifing adventures 
of Phillip ^arll^ an Englijhman^ who was dif covered by 
Mr. Dorrinton., a Brijiol rnerchant., upon an uninhabited 
ijland^ in the South Sea^ where he lived about fifty years with- 
out any human afiijiance — Enfield's Speaker ; or mifcellane- 
ous pieces feleSied from the beji Englifh writers^ for the im- 
provement of youth in reading hifpeaking ; Elegant ExtraCls. 

Fordyce's Addreffes to Young Men, do. Sermons to 
Young Women, Farmer's Friend, Fool of Quality 3 vol. 
Friend of Youth 2 vol. Flavel's Token for Mourners, 
Federal Ready Reckoner. 

Goldfmith's Eflays and Poems, do. Hifl:ory of Rome 
abridged, Gregory's Legacy. 

Hunter's Sacred Biography, 6 vol. in 3, Harris' Natu- 
ral Hiftory of the Bible, do. Syftem of Punctuation, 
Hervey's Meditations, Haplefs Orphan, by a lady, 2 vol. 
Hamilton's Midwifery, Hive. 

Inquifitor, or Invifible Rambler. 

Jofephus, by Whifton, 6 vol. Jockey Club abridged, 
Jenyn's View, do. LeClures, Julia de Roubigne, Jofeph 
Andrews, Jackfon on Fevers. 

Knox's Eflays, Keate's Sketches from Nature, 

Laws of Maflachufetts, Lee's Memoirs, Ladies Libra- 
ry, Life of Chrift and the Apoftles, Life of Watts and 
Doddridge, Life of Dr. Franklin, Life of Col. Gardner, 
Life of Jofeph, Lendrum's Hift. of Amer. Rev. 2 vol. 

Mills on Cattle, Mafon on Self Knowledge, Mirror, 2 
vol Moore's Travels, 2 vol. do. Zeluco, do. Medical 
Sketches, Man of Feeling, Moore's Monitor, Montague's 
Travels, Morfe's Univerfal Geographv, a neiv and elegant 
edition, having feventeen additional maps, 1 vol. large o£ia- 
vo, price \\ dollars, do. abridged. Elements of Geogra- 
phy, Aiilton's Works, Mafon's Student and Paftor, Myf- 
teries of Udolpho 3 vol. Moore's Fables for Ladies, Man 



of the World, Moore's late Journal in France, Medical 
Pocket Book. 

Newton on the Prophecies 2 vol. New England Far- 
mer, New Edinburgh Difpenfatory, Necker on Religious 
Opinions. Ovid's Art of Love. 

Pleafures of Memory, elegantly printed on tuove pape:\, 
Pleafing Inftrudor, Pomfret's Poems, Probate Laws, 
Pike's Arithmetic, do abridged^ Peter Pindar's Works 2 
vol. Pilgrim's Progrefs, Pelew Iflands, Paley's Philofo- 
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ter, Perry's Di6lionary, Pamela abridged. 

Rights of Woman, Raflelasand Dinarbas, Robinfon Cru- 
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Roderic Random 2 vol. Romance of the Foreft. 

Sanford and Merton 3 vol. in one., Sicilian Romance, 
Seneca's Morals, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, Sky Lark, 
Smellie's Anatomical Tables. 

Thompfon's Seafons, Town Officer, Turner's Book 
Keeping, Tom Jones, 3 vol. 

Winchefter on Univerfal Reftoration, Whitney's Hif- 
tory of Worcefter, Watfon's Apology for the Bible, 
Watts on the Improvement of the Mind, do. Lyric Po- 
ems, do. Pfalms and Hymns, large and Jmall., gilt or plain., 
White on Lying in Women, Williams' Hiftory of Ver- 
mont, containing much philofophical information. 

Young's Night Thoughts, Young Man's Beft Com- 
panion, Young's letters on Univerfalifm, Young's Latin 
Dictionary. 

SCHOOL BOOKS— by the grofs or Dozen. 

Alexander's Englifh and Latin Grammar, do. Elements, 
Bingham's American Preceptor, do. Young Ladies' Acci- 
dence, Perry's Spelling Book, Webfter's do. 2d & 3d 
part, Teftaments, Worcefter CoIle6lion, Holden's Mufic, 

Primmers, &c. &c. 

« » » » > 

yuji Printed for faid THOMAS, and fold as above., 

A TREATISE on the SCARLATINA ANGINOSA ; 
or Canker Rash, together with Philofophical Obfervations 



on Heat and Cold^ their bifluence on Animal and Vegetable 
Bodies . Alfo Theoretical Sketches onY^VEKS^as produced from 
Phlogijiic Principles^ and PraBical Remarks on the Dysen- 
tery — The whole being an original ivork — By I. A llen, m.d. 

Journal of the Travels and Sufferings oi DANIEL 
SAUNDERS^ jun. on board the fhip Commerce of Bof- 
ton^ which was caft away on the coaft of Arabia in 1792. 

Female Character Vindicated, or an anfwer to 
the Scurrilous InveSlives^ of Fajhionable Ge?itlemen. 

Russell's seven Sermons — too well known to need re- 
commendation. 

Divine dff Moral SoNcsy^r Children, ^7 /. Watts., d.d. 

SMALL HISTORIES, CHAPMEN' s BOOK, &c. 
Female Policy Dete6led, French Convert, Royal, do. 
Hiftory of the Holy Bible, Seven Wife Mafters, Robinfon 
Crufoe, Tom Thumb's Exhibition, New Year's Gift, Lit- 
tle King Pippin, Mountain Piper — with a great number 
of other fma II, entertaining hi/lories. 



»j=^3^ 



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and common Fools Cap, fuper- 
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faying cheap or cheaper than can be purchafed in the 

Union, wijhing only for thofe difpofed to purchafe, to call and 

fatisfy themfelves. 

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BARBERRIES AND WHEAT 

THE early New England farmer expected, of course, 
to raise the staple grains which he had cultivated 
in the old country, and among these wheat natu- 
rally held an important place. On the coast, however, 
wheat would not thrive. Thus in 1666 Morton's Memorial 
records the failure of the crop at Plymouth in characteristic 
phraseology: — "This year much of the wheat is de- 
stroyed with blasting and mildew, as also some other grain, 
by worms, and the drought afore mentioned ; but the 
Lord hath sent much rain for the recovery of the re- 
mainder, through his great mercy." ^ There are similar 
entries for the two years preceding. The settlers wrestled 
stubbornly with unfavorable conditions, but they had to 
give up in the end. In 1764 Governor Hutchinson re- 
marked that little wheat had been raised in Massachusetts 
for a long time, except in the towns on the Connecticut 
River,^ and in 1826 Judge Davis added that since Hutchin- 
son wrote " wheat has not been a constant crop . . . 
in any places nearer to the seacoast than the County of 
Worcester." 3 It is significant that the word " corn," which 
means " wheat " in England, was gradually transferred in 
the Colonies to what was at first called " Indian corn," so 
that finally the adjective was not needed and is now 
seldom used. When the West was settled, the new sense 

1 Davis's edition, Boston, 1826, p. 321. 

2 History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 2d ed., London, ^1765.] 
I, 229, note. 

3 See his edition of Morton's Memorial, p. 321. 



328 THE OLD farmer's ALM.\XACK 

of " corn " had become so well established in American 
usage that it spread throughout the country, and thus one 
of the most baffling differences between British English 
and American English came about. 

Of course our rural philosophers were not content to 
accept defeat without an effort to account for it, and a 
queer idea gained currency that the barberry bush was 
to blame. The barberry already had a bad reputation. 
It infested the land and was a great nuisance to farmers 
on account of its tenacity of life. In the Almanac for 
1800, one of Mr. Thomas's correspondents, after a few 
complimentary remarks to the editor, expresses himself 
with some passion on the subject of this ill-omened 
shrub : — 

Mr. Thomas, 

I HAVE made use of the Farmer's Almanack for the last four 
years past, and am much pleased with it. Being an old farmer 
myself, I have one observation to make, which I wish you to pub- 
lish, as I think it of no small consequence to farmers in those 
lower towns, whose lands are overrun with barberry bushes, — the 
most pernicious bush that ever I knew grow upon the face of the 
earth, multiplying exceedingly fast, though great pains are taken 
by many of our people to clear their lands of them, but to no 
purpose. Some cut them down, some burn them on where they 
were cut ; others attempt to pull them up with their oxen, but 
they soon sprout again four to one, and it is said by many, that 
there is no way to clear land of them. 

I have discovered a method, by which, a man may thoroughly 
clear his lands of them, and which I have practised for four 
years past, and it has never failed effect. Your pubHshing it in 
your next year's Almanack, perhaps, may oblige some of your 
readers, as well as gratify 

Your friend and humble sen-ant, 

P. SPRAGUE. 

Maiden, Augiist 26. 1799. 



BARBERRIES .\ND WHEAT 329 

An effectual Method to destroy Barberry Bushes. 

LET a man take a small chain with short links, and lay it on the 
ground round a bunch of bushes, then lay one of the hooks across 
the chain, and draw it as snug as he can with his hands about the 
bush close to the ground, then put on a sufficient team to bring it 
up by the roots at once. — If this be done in the months of October 
or November, it will never fail to finally exterminate them. 

Our correspondent, it will be noted, has nothing to say 
of the blasting powers of the barberry, but we have a very 
circumstantial account of them, from about the same time, 
in President Dwight's narrative of his journey to Ber- 
wick, Maine, in 1796. He is speaking of Eastern Massa- 
chusetts : — 

From Marlborough Eastward, throughout a country, extending 
to Piscataqua river on the North, and to the Counties of Bristol 
and Plymouth on the South, the Barberry bush is spread ; not 
universally, but in spots, and those often extensive. In some 
fields they occupy a sixth, fifth, and even a fourth, of the surface. 
Neat farmers exterminate them, except from the sides of their 
stone enclosures. Here it is impossible to eradicate them, un- 
less by removing the walls : for the r6ots pass under the walls ; 
and spring up so numerously, as to make a regular and well com- 
pacted hedge. It is altogether improbable therefore, that they 
will ever be extirpated. 

This bush is, in New-England, generally believed to blast both 
wheat and rye. Its blossoms, which are very numerous, and 
continue a considerable time, emit, very copiously, a pungent 
effluvium ; believed to be so acrimonious, as to injure essentially 
both these kinds of grain. Among other accounts, intended to 
establish the truth of this opinion, I have heard the following. 

A farmer on Long-Island sowed a particular piece of ground 
with wheat every second year, for near twenty years. On the 
Southern limit of this field grew a single Barberry bush. The 
Southern winds, prevailing at the season, in which this bush 



330 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

was in bloom, carried the effluvia, and afterwards the decayed 
blossoms, over a small breadth of this field to a considerable 
distance : and, wherever they fell, the wheat was blasted : while 
throughout the remainder of the field it was sound. This account 
I had from a respectable gentleman, who received it from the 
farmer himself; a man of f:\ir reputation. 

In Southborough, a township in the County of Worcester, a Mr. 
Johnson sowed with rye a field of new ground, or ground lately 
disforested. At the South end of this field, also, grew a single 
barberry bush. The grain was blasted throughout the whole 
breadth of the field, on a narrow tract commencing at the bush, 
and proceeding directly in the course, and to the extent, in 
which the blossoms were diffused by the wind. 

In another field, the property of a Mr. Harrington, an inhabi- 
tant of the same township, exactly the same circumstances 
existed : and exactly the same mischief followed. 

These two accounts I received from Mr. Johnson, son of the 
Proprietor of the field first mentioned : a student at that time 
in Yale College ; and afterwards a respectable Clergyman in 
Milford, Connecticut. 

As no part of the grain was blasted in either of these cases, 
except that, which lay in a narrow tract, leeward of the barberry 
bushes ; these facts appear to be decisive, and to establish the 
correctness of the common opinion. Should the conclusion be 
admitted ; we cannot wonder, that wheat and rye should be 
blasted, wherever these bushes abound, 

A labouring man, attached to the family of Mr. Williams, our 
host in this town [Marlborough], informed me, that in Mr. 
Williams's garden a barberry-bush grew in the wall a number of 
years ; that during this period esculent roots, although frequently 
planted near it, never came to such a degree of perfection, as to 
be fit for use ; that such, as grew at all, appeared to be lean and 
shrivelled, as if struggling with the influence of an unfriendly 
climate ; that the wall was after^vards removed, and the bush 
entirely eradicated ; that in the first succeeding season such 
roots flourished perfectly well on the same spot, and were of a 



BARBERRIES AND WHEAT 33 1 

good quality ; and that, ever since, they had grown, year by 
year to the same perfection. My informant added, that the soil 
was very rich, and throughout every other part of the garden was 
always entirely suited to the growth of these vegetables , and 
that it was not more highly manured, after the removal of the 
bush, than before. This is the only instance of the kind, within 
my knowledge. If there be no errour in the account ; it indi- 
cates, that the barberry-bush has an unfavourable influence on 
other vegetable productions, beside wheat and rye.^ 

President Dwight, then, was familiar with the evil repu- 
tation of the barberry, but he was too philosophical a 
thinker to accept what he heard without scrutiny. His 
account of the matter is a good instance of scientific 
elimination resulting in a non-plus. 

Lieutenant John Harriott, who scrutinized New England, 
in 1794, with the experienced eye of a scientific farmer, 
thoroughly acquainted with agriculture in the mother 
country, was by no means satisfied with the current 
theory. He writes : — 

The soil, in the interior country, is best calculated for Indian 
corn, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and flax. In some of the 
farther inland parts, wheat is raised ; but, on the sea-coast, it 
has never been cultivated with much success, being subject to 
blasts. Various reasons are assigned for this : some suppose 
these blasts to be occasioned by the saline vapours from the 
sea ; but I can not agree to this, well knowing that many of the 
best wheats that are grown in England, in quantity and quality, 
are from sea-marshes and lands adjoining the sea- Others attri- 
bute it to the vicinity of Barberry-bushes, to the truth of which 
I cannot speak. But the principal cause appeared to me to be 
the poverty and sandy nature of the soil in general, together with 
exceedingly bad management.^ 

1 Travels in New-England and New- York, I, 3S1-3; cf. I, 376. 

2 Struggles through Life, London, 1S07, II, 32-33. 



^^2 THE OLD FARMER S ALMANACK 

Subsequent experiments, undertaken about 1S25 by 
the Massachusetts Agricultural Society seemed to show- 
that the failure of the crop was due, in part, to the kind 
of wheat cultivated, and that the substitution of spring or 
summer wheat for winter wheat would be advantageous.^ 
Howe\er. the course of empire soon made it clear that 
New England was not to be its own granary. The question 
ceased to be of much practical importance, and the inno- 
cent barberry bush gradually lost its bad eminence in the 
farmer's mind.- 

^ Davis's edition of Morton's Memorial, p. j^2i. 

- In 1S3:: Wilkinson notices the belief in his Histon- of Maine, I. 114: 
" Berberis vulgaris. It is said C'rw wiU not fill well near it." 



ft 



INDIAN TALK 

'\^ THAT kind of English did the Indians speak in 
\\ New England? This is a thorny subject, but 
not without charms for the investigator. The 
Almanac for 1797 contains an anecdote which appears to 
have a certain value in this regard. Anvhow, it is sood 
enough to repeat : — 

AX Indian who was appointed a Justice of the Peace, issued 
the following Warrant. — Me I/:£^h Hawder, \yx constable, yu 
deputy, best way yu look um Jeremiah Wicket, strong \\\. take 
um. fast ra hold um, quick \-u bring um before me, 

Capain Howdfr, 

At first glance, this alleged Indian warrant looks like a 
bit of white man's facetiousness and nothing more. But 
one should not be so hcist>". A little searching reveals the 
existence of a somewhat complicated tradition. 

Another version was printed by Judge John Davis, in 
1826, in his edition of Nathaniel Morton's New England's 
Memorial : ^ — 

At the Courts in Barnstable County, formerly, we often heard 
from our aged friends and from the Vineyard gentlemen, amus- 
ing anecdotes of Indian rulers. The following warrant is recol- 
lected, which was issued by one of those magistrates directed to 
an Indian Constable, and will not suffer in comparison with our 
more verbose forms. 

1 P. 415. 



334 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

I Hihoudi, 

You Peter Waterman, 
Jeremy Wicket ; 
Quick you take him, 
Fast you hold him, 
Straight you bring him, 
Before me, Hihoudi. 

Mr. Davis was at Barnstable as a tutor in the family of 
Gen. James Otis shortly after his graduation from college 
in 1 78 1, and he began the practice of law at Plymouth in 
1787.^ The chances are that he heard this anecdote 
before 1800. His version of the writ, as well as that in the 
Almanac, obviously represents an Old Colony tradition. 
Hihoudi, or High Howder, has- not been identified, though 
a friendly red man called How Doe Yee is mentioned in 
the Plymouth Colony Records.- Wicket is a familiar In- 
dian name,"^ perpetuated in the designation of Wjcket 
Island in Onset Bay. 

There is, however, another tradition which ascribes the 
eccentric writ to Wabau, or Thomas JVahnn, and which, 
as we shall see in a moment, is closely connected with the 
history of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Dr. William 
Allen, President of Bowdoin College, in the second edition 
of his American Biographical and Historical Dictionary, 
published in 1832, gives the warrant as follows: — 

You, you big constable, quick you catch um Jeremiah Off- 
scow, strong you hold um, safe you bring um afore me. 

Waban, justice peace.'* 

1 See his biography by Dr. Francis, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 3rd Series, 
X, 1S7-S. 

- March 6, 1676-7, V, 225. 

' For instance, Simon Wickett of Pocasset, mentioned in the Plymouth 
Colony Records in 1679 (^'I- '*^A 

* P. 741, article IVabati. This article is not in the tirst edition of the 
Dictionary (1S09). 



INDIAN TALK 335 

Dr. Allen publishes another anecdote about this same 
official, which, however, occurs in a somewhat more lively 
form in William Biglow's History of Natick, 1830, along 
with the warrant. Since Mr. Biglow appeals directly to 
the " authority of tradition " and does not appear to have 
derived his material from Dr. Allen, it is worth while to 
reproduce his exact words : — 

The following is handed down as a true copy of a warrant, 
issued by an Indian magistrate. — " You, you big constable, quick 
you catchum Jeremiah Offscow, strong you holdum, safe you 
bringum afore me. 

" Thomas Waban, Justice peace." 
When Waban became superannuated, a younger magistrate 
was appointed to succeed him. Cherishing that respect for age 
and long experience, for which the Indians are remarkable, the 
new officer waited on the old one for advice. Having stated 
a variety of cases and received satisfactory answers, he at length 
proposed the following : — " when Indians get drunk and quarrel 
and fight and act like Divvil, what you do dan? " — " Hah ! tie 
um all up, and whip um plaintiff, whip urn fendant and whip um 
witness." ^ 

Mr. Biglow, it will be observed, gives the justice's name 
as TJiomas Waban, whereas Dr. Allen calls him Waban 
pure and simple. The discrepancy is of some moment. 
The two names are not identical, but belong to different 
generations, — Waban was the father and Thomas Waban 
the son. Both were inhabitants of Natick, and both were 
men of note in their day. Let us see if we can get any 
light on the subject of this Natick legend by an appeal to 
authenticated history. 

Old Waban is a famous character in New England 
annals. He was well disposed toward Christianity from 
the outset, and it was in his wigwam at Nonantum, now 

1 P. 85. 



336 THE OLD farmer's alm.\xack 

a part of Xewton, that the apostle Eliot preached his first 
sermon to the aborigines. The Rev. John Wilson, to 
whom we probably owe our account of this historic service, 
speaks of "Waaubon" as " the chief minister of Justice 
among them," and remarks that he " gives more grounded 
hopes of serious respect to the things of God, then any that 
as yet I have knowne of that forlorne generation." The 
meeting took place on October 28th, 1646,^ and the site 
of the wigwam is approximately marked by an inscription 
on Eliot Terrace, a memorial structure dedicated a few 
years ago. In another place Wilson describes Waban as 
" a man of gravitie and chiefe prudence and counsell 
among them, although no Sac/:c>n," and as " like to bee 
a meanes of great good to the rest of his company unlesse 
cowardise or witchery put an end (as usually they have 
done) to such hopefuU beginnings." - By " witchery " Wil- 
son means of course the diabolical arts of the pownvows, or 
Indian wizards, whose influence was constantly exerted to 
thwart the efforts of the missionaries, and whom both 
Indians and white men believed to have direct communion 
with the devil and his angels.^ We have John Eliot's own 
evidence that Waban was his earliest convert : — " Waban 
was the first that received the gospel." * 

In 1650. at the instance of Eliot, the praying Indians 
received a grant of the township of Xatick, and a fort and 
one dwelling house were built.^ The actual settlement of 
the new town took place in the following year, when, still 
under Eliot's direction, a form of government was adopted. 

1 [John Wilson?] The Day-Breaking, if not the Sun- Rising of the Gojpell 
with the Indians in New-England, London. 1647. p. i. 

- The same, p. 20. 

2 Cf. pp. loS ff ., above. 

* Eliot, as quoted by John Dunton, Letters from Xew-England, \6S6, ed. 
Whitmore, 1S67. p. 234. 

* Eliot, A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel, 
€tc., London, 1655, p. 3. 



IXDL\N TALK ^^J 

The Indians " chose among themselves Rulers of ten, fifty, 
and an hundred, according to the holy Patteme " in the 
eighteenth chapter of Exodus.^ Waban was elected a 
Ruler of Fifty and we have the word of Eliot himself that 
he governed well, for, ^vrite5 the apostle in 1652, *' his 
gift lay in Ruling. Judging of Cases, wherein he is patient, 
constant, and prudent, insomuch that he is much respected 
among them." ^ Subsequently Waban became the leading 
man in the Xatick community, and he is so designated in 
1674 by Major Gookin, who remarks that he '* is now 
above 70 years of age " and " a person of great prudence 
and piet}-." adding " I do not know any Indian that excels 
him." * He was the steadfast friend of the white men. In 
April, 1675. as Gookin tells us, "Waban, the principal 
Ruler of the praying Indians living at Xatick, came to 
one of the Magistrates on purpose, and informed him that 
he had ground to fear that Sachem Philip and other In- 
dians . . . intended some mischief shortly to the English 
and Christian Indians," and " again, in May, about six 
weeks before the war began, he came again and renewed 
the same." * 

The nature of Waban's authority as a Ruler of Fift>. and 
later cis the chief man of Natick, is sufficiently indicated 
by an order of the General Court, passed in 1647, the year 
after Eliot's first sermon in the wigwam at Nonantum. It 
is here given as printed by Thomas Shepard : — 

Vpon information that the Indians dwelling among us, and 
submitted to oar government, being by the Ministry of the Word 
brought to some civihty, are desirous to have a course of ordinary 

1 Eliot, as above, p. 3. 

- Confessions of Indians, in Elliot and Mavhew. Tears of Repentance, 
London. lo;,^ p. S. 

' Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, Mass. Hist. Soc 
Coll.. I. 1S4. 

* Historical Accoant, Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 440-1. 



338 THE OLD farmer's ALM-\XACK 

Judicature set up among them : It is therefore ordered by au- 
thority of this Court, that some one or more of the Magistrates, 
as they shall agree amongst themselves, shall once every quarter 
keep a Court at such place, where the Indians ordinarily assemble 
to hear the Word of God, and may then hear and determine all 
causes both civill and criminall, not being capitall, concerning the 
Indians only, and that the Indian Sachims shall have libertie to 
take order in the nature of Summons or Attachments, to bring 
any of their awn people to the said Courts, and to keep a Court 
of themselves, every moneth if they see occasion, to determine 
small causes of a civill nature, and such smaller criminall causes, 
as the said Magistrates shall referre to them ; and the said Sachims 
shall appoint Officers to serve Warrants, and to execute the Orders 
and Judgements of either of the said Courts, which Officers 
shall from time to time bee allowed [i. e., approved] by the 
said Magistrates in the quarter Courts or by the Governour : And 
that all fines to bee imposed upon any Indian in any of the said 
Courts, shall goe and bee bestowed towards the building of some 
meeting houses, for education of their poorer children in learning, 
or other publick use, by the advice of the said Magistrates and 
of Master Eliot, or of such other Elder, as shall ordinarily instruct 
them in the true Religion. And it is the desire of this Court, 
that these Magistrates and Mr. Eliot or such other Elders as shall 
attend the keeping of the said Courts will carefully indeavour to 
make the Indians understand our most usefuU Lawes, and the 
principles of reason, justice and equity whereupon they are 
grounded, & it is desired that some care may be taken of the 
Indians on the Lords dayes.^ 

The founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were 
remarkable in many ways, — this may be asserted without 
fear of contradiction, even from those historical students 
who have a fancy to be iconoclastic, — and not the least 
noteworthy of their traits was an unusual capacity for 

1 The Clear Sun-shine of the Gospel. London, 1648, pp. 15-16. The text 
in the Colony Records, IH, 105-6, differs slightly. 



INDIAN TALK 339 

knowing precisely what they were about. It was no acci- 
dent, for instance, that the Massachusetts Charter con- 
tained no reference to control by a board of directors in 
England. It was the outcome of a carefully laid plan. 
The colonists had no doubt of their ability to govern them- 
selves, and they meant to try the experiment without in- 
terference. They were ready to meet each exigency as 
it arose, and, though it would be absurd to maintain that 
they never made a mistake, it is certain that their valiant 
common sense, which declined to worry overmuch about 
the exact boundaries of precedent, produced a form of 
democracy which is likely to maintain itself. Their tem- 
per toward the savages, as shown in the law just quoted, 
was in entire accord with their general habit of mind. If 
the Indians wished to be civilized, the Colony was willing 
to do its part, and to that end it had no hesitation in en- 
trusting them, under proper supervision, with a consider- 
able measure of local self-government. 

The order of 1647 went into effect immediately. The 
account of its operation given by Gookin in his Historical 
Collections (1674) is admirably clear and concise: — 

Forasmuch as a pious magistracy and christian government is 
a great help and means for promoting, cherishing, encouraging, 
and propagating, the christian religion among any people, espe- 
cially a nation so circumstanced, as these rude, uncultivated, and 
barbarous Indians were ; care was taken by the general court of 
the Massachusetts, at the motion of Mr. Eliot, to appoint some 
of the most prudent and pious Indians, in every Indian village 
that had received the gospel, to be rulers and magistrates among 
them, to order their affairs both civil and criminal, and of a more 
ordinary and inferiour nature. These rulers were chosen by 
themselves, but approved by a superiour authority. 

But moreover the general court appointed and empowered 
one of the English magistrates, to join with the chief of their 
rulers, and keep a higher court among them ; extending the 



340 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

power of this court to the latitude of a county court among the 
English ; from the jurisdiction whereof nothing for good order 
and government, civil or criminal, is excepted, but appeals, life, 
limb, banishment, and cases of divorce. The first English magis- 
trate, chosen to be ruler over the praying Indians in the colony 
of Massachusetts, was first Mr. D. G. the author of these Collec- 
tions ; and this was in A. D. 1656. But not long after his occa- 
sions called him for England for two or three years ; one Major 
Humphrey Atherton was appointed to conduct this affair, which 
he did about three years. But then the Lord taking him to him- 
self, by death, and the author being returned back, in the year 
1660, a year or more before Major Atherton's death, was again 
called and reinstated in that employ A. D. 1661, and hath con- 
tinued in that work hitherto.^ 

Evidently, then, on the establishment of the civil polity 
contemplated in this decree, Waban became a kind of judge 
and held ofhce under the authority of the Colony. In 1674 
there were several other " rulers" at Natick, but they were 
subordinate to Waban, and there were also two " con- 
stables," chosen yearly.^ By this time several other In- 
dian towns had been organized, on the model of Natick, 
with rulers, constables, and teachers. There was also 
" a marshal general belonging to all the praying Indian 
towns, called Captain Josiah, or Pennahannit." ^ Gookin 
gives a full account of these settlements, and has put on 
record the names of many of the rulers and of certain con- 
stables. At one of the new settlements, Chabanakongko- 
mun, now Dudley, we learn of one " Black James, who 
about a year since was constituted constable of all these 
new praying towns." Gookin declares that " he is a person 
that hath approved himself diligent and courageous, faith- 

1 Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, Coll. Mass. 
Hist. Soc, 1792, I, 177. 

2 Gookin, Historical Collections, p. 184. 
^ The same, p. 184. 



INDIAN TALK 34I 

ful and zealous to suppress sin." ^ According to Eliot, 
Black James " was in former times reputed by the English 
to be a Pawaw " or wizard, but this the conscientious 
apostle refuses to assert or deny of his own knowledge. 
" I know," he writes, " he renounced and repented of all 
his former ways ; and desired to come to Christ, and pray 
to God; and dyed well."^ 

The clearest idea of the relations of the various Indian 
officers to each other and to the supervisory magistrate 
may be had from Gookin's report of two courts held by 
him in 1674. For our first example we may take the pro- 
ceedings at Wabquissit, now a part of Woodstock, Con- 
necticut. First came religious exercises conducted by 
Eliot and a native teacher known as Sampson : — 

Then I began a court among the Indians. And first I approved 
their teacher Sampson, and their constable Black James ; giving 
each of them a charge to be diligent and faithful in their places. 
Also I exhorted the people to yield obedience to the gospel of 
Christ and to those set in order there. Then published a warrant 
or order, that I had prepared, empowering the constable to sup- 
press drunkenness, sabbath breaking, especially powowing and 
idolatry. And after warning given, to apprehend all delinquents, 
and bring them before authority, to answer for their misdoings : 
the smaller faults to bring before Wattasacompanum, ruler of the 
Nipmuck country ; for idolatry and powowing to bring them 
before me : So we took leave of this people of Wabquissit, and 
about eleven o'clock, returned back to Maanexit and Chabana- 
kongkomun, where we lodged this night. ^ 

Again, at Pakachoog, now apparently a part of 
Worcester: — 

1 Gookin, Historical Collections, p. igo. 

2 Eliot, as quoted by John Dunton, Letters from New-England, 1686, ed. 
Whitmore, 1867, p. 241. 

^ Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, 1674, Coll. Mass. 
Hist. Soc, 1792, I, 192. 



342 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

After some short respite, a court was kept among them. My 
chief assistant was Wattasacompanum, ruler of the Nipmuck 
Indians, a grave and pious man, of the chief sachem's blood of 
the Nipmuck country. He resides at Hassanamesitt ; but by 
former appointment, calleth here, together with some others. 
The principal matter done at this court, was, first to constitute 
John and Solomon to be rulers of this people and co-ordinate in 
power, clothed with the authority of the English government, 
which they accepted : also to allow and approve James Speen 
for their minister. . . Also they chose, and the court confirmed, 
a new constable, a grave and sober Indian, called Mattoonus. 
Then I gave both the rulers, teacher, constable, and people, 
their respective charges ; to be diligent and faithful for God, 
zealous against sin, and careful in sanctifying the sabbath.^ 

The constable's sign of ofifice was a black staff. ^ Of 
course he sometimes encountered resistance, especially 
when there was a conflict of authority between the old 
order and the new. A lively scene of this kind is described 
by Gookin. One Petavit, alias Robin, "ruler" at Hassa- 
namesitt (Grafton), was visited by a sagamore from the 
" inland country," who thought himself exempt from the 
novel jurisdiction. The visitor brought with him " a rundlet 
of strong liquors." Next morning Petavit " sent for the 
constable, and ordered him, and according to law, seized 
the rundlet of liquors. At which act the sagamore drew a 
long knife, and stood with his foot at the rundlet, daring 
any to seize it. But Petavit thereupon rose up and drew 
his knife, and set his foot also to the rundlet, and com- 
manded the constable to do his office. And the saga- 
more " . . . .^ Here there is an unlucky hiatus in the 
story, but the context makes it clear that the undaunted 
Petavit carried his point. 

1 Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, 1674, Coll. Mass. 
Hist. Soc, 1792, I, 193. 

2 The same, p. 194. ^ The same, p. 191. 



INDL\X TALK 343 

But we must return to Waban, for in illustrating his 
position and defining the scope of his authority we have 
almost lost sight of the venerable ruler himself As we 
have seen, he had twice given the English warning of the 
hostilities contemplated by King Philip. When the war 
broke out, the praying Indians contributed their quota to 
the Colonial forces. Yet they were looked upon with 
suspicion, and finally, in October, 1675, the whole body 
of tlie Xatick Indians, with their ruler Waban, were trans- 
ported to Deer Island, where they were soon joined by 
those from Punkapog, who were equally friendly to the 
whites. There they remained until the following spring, 
suffering many hardships from the rigors of the winter and 
from insufficient food. Disease broke out among them, and 
Waban and John Thomas, the principal teacher, who were 
" extreme low " when they were brought back to the main- 
land, recovered their health with difficult}-. '' Had they 
died," writes Major Gookin, " it would have been a great 
weakening to the work of God among them." ^ When at 
last they had been allowed to return to Xatick, a court was 
held by Gookin, at which Eliot was present. Waban's 
speech on this occasion has been preserved, in translation. 
It is too creditable to the old ruler to be omitted here : — 

We do, with all thankfiilness, acknowledge God's great good- 
ness to us, in presening us alive to this day. Formerly, in our 
beginning to pray unto God, we received much encouragement 
from many godly English, both here and in England. Since the 
war begun between the English and wicked Indians, we expected 
to be all cut off, not only by the enemy Indians, whom we know 
hated us, but also by many English, who were much exasperated 
and very angn.- with us. In this case, we cried to God, in prayer, 
for help. Then God stirred up the governor and magistrates to 
send us to the Island, which was grievous to us : for we were 

1 Gookin, Historical Account, pp. 474, 4S5, 517. 



344 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

forced to leave all our substance behind us, and we expected 
nothing else at the Island, but famine and nakedness. But 
behold God's goodness to us and our poor families, in stirring 
up the hearts of many godly persons in England, who never saw 
us, yet showed us kindness and much love, and gave us some 
corn and clothing, together with other provision of clams, that 
God provided for us. Also, in due time, God stirred up the 
hearts of the governor and magistrates, to call forth some of our 
brethren to go forth to fight against the enemy both to us and the 
English, and was pleased to give them courage and success in 
that service, unto the acceptance of the English; for it was 
always in our hearts to endeavour to do all we could, to demon- 
strate our fidelity to God and to the English, and against their 
and our enemy ; and for all these things, we desire God only 
may be glorified.^ 

The date of old Waban's death is uncertain, but he was 
alive in May, 1682, being then about eighty years old.^ He 
must have died before 1684 ; otherwise he would unques- 
tionably have joined in the Groton deed of that year.^ 

From what has been said it is clear enough that Waban 
exercised a considerable measure of judicial authority 
among the Natick Indians and had constables under him, 
so that we have no difficulty in understanding how a 
tradition might arise that he was a regular Justice of the 
Peace; but it is evident that he never actually held that 
precise commission. That he did not issue the warrant 
so often ascribed to him is easy to prove. For Waban 
did not know how to write. Several deeds are on record 
which bear his signature ; but it is always a " mark." 
We must therefore pass on to his son, Thomas Waban, 

1 Gookin, Historical Account, p. 522. 

- Cf. Gookin's report to the Council, Nov. lo, 1676, in Trans, and Coll. 
American Antiq. Soc, H (1836), 532, with his Historical Collections, Coll. 
Mass. Hist. Soc, 1, 1S4, and Mass. Colony Records, V, 353. 

^ See p. 345, below. 



INDIAN TALK 345 

whom one form of the tradition designates as responsible 
for the picturesquely expressed document that we are 
investigating. 

There can be no doubt that Thomas Waban was old 
VVaban's son. It was a regular practice for a converted 
Indian to adopt the name of his father as a surname and 
to receive a Christian name at baptism. When Eliot and 
his three companions visited VVaban's wigwam to hold 
their first service (October 28, 1646), they found Waban's 
eldest son " standing by his father among the rest of his 
Indian brethren in English clothes." And later, according 
to the same authority, Waban voluntarily offered this son 
" to be educated and trained up in the knowledge of God 
hoping, as hee told us, that he might come to know him, 
though hee despaired much concerning himself" The 
offer was accepted and the boy was sent to school at 
Dedham.^ His English learning is thus accounted for. 
We have Thomas Waban's signature in full to certain 
deeds, notably to one which concerns the title to the town 
of Groton, Massachusetts. In 1683, three years before 
the " usurpation " of Sir Edmund Andros, the inhabitants 
of Groton, feeling that the charter of the Massachusetts 
Bay Company might be abrogated at any moment, took 
measures to secure a conveyance from the former Indian 
proprietors of their township. The outcome of their 
negotiations was a deed from Thomas Waban and others, 
which is on record in the Middlesex Registry at East 
Cambridge.^ It is dated January 10, 1683-4, and, though 
the other grantors make their marks, Thomas Waban 
signs his name. In 1684 twenty-eight Indians presented 
a petition to the General Court, complaining that " Thomas 
Woban " and others are " appropriating to themselves " 

^ The Day-Breaking, London, 1647, P- i- 

2 Printed by Dr. Samuel A. Green, Groton during the Indian Wars, 
Groton, 1S83, pp. 183-5. 



346 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Indian land and selling it and " keeping all the pay to 
themselves," and are claiming other lands as well.^ Obvi- 
ously, as Dr. Green suggests, the more intelligent natives 
were taking advantage of the fears of the settlers to turn 
an honest penny, and their acts excited some jealousy 
among those of their fellows who thought they did not 
get a fair share of the proceeds. We must remember 
that the petition is an ex parte document. It shows that 
Thomas Waban was a leading man in his community and 
a person of some enterprise ; but we should not let the 
mere fact of this petition lower him in our esteem. 

Thomas Waban, like his father, lived at Natick, and 
the records of that town from 1700 to 1735, fragmentary 
though they are, bear evidence enough of his literary attain- 
ments. They are partly in Indian, partly in English, and 
many of them are signed " Thomas Waban, Town Clerk." 
Here is a specimen of his skill in both languages : ^ 

The Town Acts of Natick in 1 8'.*' Aprill 1 7 1 5 — You. you 
matta wonk Howan. vemmakko oh mehtukq vn : wattuhkonnaut 
wutch you : oh quombot toh neit Howan washont : Chekewe 
nee : wuttisseen : makkow mehtukquash : vnnee wattuhkonaut noh 
pish oattehwaw : twenty Shillings : wutche pasuk mehtukq — you 
unni nashpee Tho. Waban : Town Clerk you ut 

you : vnnoomattooonk — 

At a Generall Town meeting Natick upon iS"* day Aprill 
lyiS'*" — Then we are all agree"* and mad law amongs' us our 
selues that non of us shall seel any Timber not to y^ English if 
any of us do seal any Timber he shall foruit twenty Shillings to 
the Town vse and pay to the Town next meeting after 
as Attesd by Me Thomas Waban Town Clerk 

1 Mass. Archives, XXX, 2S7 ; printed by Dr. Green, as above, p. 1S7. 

- From the original record. The edges of the MS. being somewhat 
damaged, a few words and letters are supplied from the copy given by 
William Biglow, History of Natick, Boston, 1S30, p. 21. Biglow's text is 
verv incorrect. 




< c 
o 

I ^ 

o ^ 



IXDL\N TALK 347 

The English in this case is in effect the town clerk's 
own translation of. the Indian. 

Thomas Waban's English Records may seem grotesque, 
but they are hardly more so than some entries made by 
white town clerks of the period. The following is selected, 
inasmuch as it has to do with a transaction in which 
Waban himself was interested. It is the vote of the 
town of Groton which resulted in securing the Indian 
deed just adverted to. In justice to our ancestors, how- 
ever, it should be remarked that few town clerks of the 
period can vie with Mr. Jonathan ]\Iorse in eccentricities 
of spelling: — 

At a ginarall Town meting upon 25 d lo m 16S3 John Page 
John Parish Insin Lorinc 

as you are Chosin a comity for and in the behalf of the Towne 
you are desiered for too proue the Rit and titill we haue too our 
Tooun ship by all the legall testimony which can be procuerid 
when the Toown is sent too by aney a Tority and if aney ingins 
can proue a lagiall titall too the Remainer of our Town ship you 
haue power to by it at as easi a lay as you can and mack it as 
sur as may be in the behalf of the Toown and you shall haue 
Reasinabll satisfackion for your payns. 

JoxATH.^N Mors Clark 
in the nam of the selecktmen 31 d 10 m 1683 ^ 

From the Natick records it appears that Thomas Waban 
was not only town clerk but that he was several times 
chosen as one of the selectmen. Another bit of evidence 
brings us still nearer to the date of our first recorded copy 
of the famous warrant, which, it will be remembered, 
occurs in the Almanac for 1796. In 1749 there was a 
census of the Natick Indians, and in the list occur not 
only "Thomas and Hannah Waban" but also "Jonas 

1 Samuel A. Green, Groton during the Indian Wars, 1SS3, pp. 1S2-3. 



348 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

Obscow."^ From the Xatick records it appears that Jonas 
Obscho was born June 5th, 1739, and died November 13th, 
1S05. Now "Jeremiah Offscoiv^'' is the person whom the 
constable is directed, in one version of the warrant, to 
" seize quick, hold strong, and bring safe " before the 
justice. Finally, in 1798, the Rev. Jonathan Homer 
reports, in his Description and History of Newton, that 
the name Waban "is still honourably remembered at 
Natick, where some of [old Waban's] posterity were 
known not many years since. The name and civil office 
of Esquire Waban, one of his descendants, is particularly 
mentioned." ^ Mr. Homer's words are unfortunately rather 
vague, but they allow us, by an easy inference, to main- 
tain that Thomas Waban was remembered in his own 
vicinity under the designation proper, according to New 
England usage, to a justice of the peace. Milton desired 
to " call up " Chaucer, 

who left hali told 

The story of Cambuscan bold 

in the Squire's Tale. The tale of " Esquire Waban " is 
hardly important enough to justify us in wishing to 
disturb the slumber of Mr. Homer ; but we could wish 
that a mistaken regard for the dignity of history had not 
deterred him from committing to print the historic warrant 
for the arrest of Jeremiah (or was it Jonas?) Offscow, 
which we cannot help thinking must have been known to 
him.^ 

Judge Samuel SeWall was acquainted with Thomas 
Waban. In his Diary, September 28, 1715, he notes : — 
" Went to Cambridge to meet the Natick Comittee, Waban 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. X, 135. 
* The same, 179S, V. 263. 

8 Another Thomas Waban, undoubtedly the town clerk's son, was mar- 
ried at Natick to Sarah Seby, June 6th, 173S (Town Records). 



INDIAN TALK 349 

and others. Major Fitch, Mr. Ohver and I dine with the 
President. I would have dined pubhckly [at the ordi- 
nary] ; but the president decHn'd it. I went in a Calash, 
came home by A^Ioonshine. Accomplish the Bargain 
for Magunkaquog [Hopkinton] land, and paid Fourteen 
pounds in part. Laus Deo." ^ On the eleventh of October 
he records: "Went with Mr. Daniel Oliver to Natick; 
from the Falls in Company with the President and Tho. 
Oliver esqr. and Mr. John Cotton. At Natick the In- 
dians of the Comittee executed the Parchment Deed 
for the land at Magunkaquog: and paid the Proprietors 
Three pounds apiece. 'Twas so late, that when the 
Gentlemen return'd, I went to Sherbourn, lodg'd at Cousin 
Baker's." 2 

The Waban mentioned in the first of these entries is 
beyond question Thomas, for the elder Waban died some 
years before. The point is made certain by the fact that 
the Hopkinson Deed is signed by Thomas Waban. We 
owe so much to Judge Sewall for what his famous Diary 
contains that it would be ungracious to blame him for any 
particular omission ; )'et one cannot help wishing that he 
had given us a few details about the Indian committeemen 
even if he had omitted to record that he Avent to Cam- 
bridge in a calash and came home by moonshine. He 
does, however, afford us a gruesome item of information 
about Isaac Nehemiah, another of the committee. On 
the day after the signing of the deed Sewall makes the 
following entry : — 

Solomon Thomas acquaints me that Isaac Nehemiah, one of 
the Comittee, had hang'd himself. Ask'd what they should doe. 
I sent him to the Crowner. A while after I went to Cous. 
Gookin's in order to go home. When there, Solomon came to 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 5th Series, VII, 60. 

2 The same, p. 62. 



350 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

me again, and earnestly desired me to go and help them. Mr. 
Whitney join'd to solicit for him, by reason of the distance from 
Cambridge. So I went, Mr. Baker accompanied me. The Jury 
found Isaac Nehemiah to be Felo de se. Hang'd himself with 
his Girdle, 3 foot and 4 inches long buckle and all. 'Twas night 
before had done, so went to Sherbourn again, and lodg'd at 
Cousin Gookin's.^ 

It appears, then, that both the Old Colony and the 
Massachusetts Bay tradition of the Indian warrant, though 
they may owe their precise form to some jocose white 
man, have manifest touches of local color. There were 
Indian magistrates who were similar to justices of the 
peace, and there were Indian officers who were known as 
constables.^ There were Indians named Wicket in Ply- 
mouth Colony ; there was a Thomas Waban as well as an 
Offscow at Natick ; and it is barely possible that Hihoudi 
is a form of the name How d' ye. It may be added that 
Thomas Waban is decorated with the title of Captain in 
the Natick town records of 17 19, as Howder is in one 
version of the warrant. 

The punishment of whipping, which, according to an- 
other anecdote, seemed to Squire Waban appropriate 
for plaintiff, defendant, and witness in cases of drunken 
brawling, it was of course within the power of the native 
rulers to inflict. Here we are not dependent on tradition. 
Again we have the word of John Eliot to instruct us. In 
1654, it appears, there was a lamentable occurrence at 
Natick. Three mischievous Indians near Watertown had 
got possession of " severall quarts of Strong-water, which 
sundry out of a greedy desire of a little gaine, are too 
ready to sell unto them, to the offence and grief of the 
better sort of Indians, and of the godly English too." 

1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, sth Series, VII, 62. 

2 For Indian constables in Plymouth Colony, see the Records, XI, 253, 
254. 255- 



INDIAN TALK 35 I 

With this they not only intoxicated themselves, but also 
a boy of eleven years, a son of the Indian ruler Tote- 
swamp. " Now," said one of them, " we will see whether 
your father will punish us for Drunkennesse, seeing you are 
drunk with us for company." "They also fought," adds 
Eliot, " and had been severall times Punished formerly 
for Drunkennesse." All four of the culprits were brought 
before the native court, at which Toteswamp presided, 
and the decision was in complete agreement with the 
spirit of the anecdote respecting Thomas Waban : — 

They judged the three men to sit in the stocks a good space of 
time, and thence to be brought to the whipping-Post, & have 
each of them twenty lashes. The boy to be put in the stocks 
a little while, and the next day his father was to whip him in the 
School, before the Children there ; all which Judgement was exe- 
cuted. When they came to be whipt, the Constable fetcht them 
one after another to the Tree (which they make use of instead of 
a Post) where they all received their Punishments.^ 

Two Connecticut sentences from the eighteenth centurj^ 
may be quoted, to show the close parallel between these 
proceedings and those which took place before colonial 
and provincial magistrates. They have reference to the 
offence of drunkenness and to that of selling liquor to the 
Indians. There is an amusing tit-for-tat in the docu- 
ments which reminds one strongly of the " whip um 
plaintiff, whip um fendant " of the Indian squire. 

Norwich ye "jth day of feb. 1722-3. — Apenanucsuck being 
drunk was by y* Constable brought before me R. Bushnell, justice 
of y* peace to be dealt with so as the law directs. — I do sentence 
y^ s'' Apenuchsuck for his transgression of y^ Law, to pay a fine 
of ten shillings, or to be whipt ten Lashes on y* naked body, and 

1 Eliot, A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel, 
London, 1655, pp. 6-S. 



SS- THE OLD farmer's ALM.\NACK 

to pay the cost of his prosecution, and to continue in y^ con- 
stable's custody till this sentence be performed. Cost allowed is 
6s. and 6d. R. Biishnell, Justice of ye Peace. 

Apeanuchsuch having accused Samuel Bliss for selling )•* s^ 
Indian 2 pots of cider this afternoon. Mr. Samuel Bliss ap- 
peared before me y* subscriber, and acknowledged he let s'* 
Indian have some cider, and do therefore sentence y" said 
Samuel Bliss to pay a fine of twenty shillings for the transgression 
of )•* Law to be disposed of as y' Law directs. 

flebe. y"' 7 th day, 1 7:^^-3. R. Bushnell, ///.^/f'tY.^ 

Indian justice of a less formal kind appears in a tradi- 
tional anecdote of Jacob Spalding, one of the early settlers 
of Killingly. in the same State. The incident is said to 
have occurred in 1720: — 

Jacob one day purchased of an Indian a deer skin, for which 
he paid him a tenor bill. The latter, somewhat intoxicated, 
forgot soon after that he had received it, and asked for the 
money a second time. Jacob of course paid no attention to 
such an unwarrantable demand, and the Indian went away mut- 
tering revenge. The next day, while shingling a barn, Jacob 
saw him returning with two companions. He leaped from the 
roof, met them, and was again asked to pay the price of the deer 
skin. He refused to comply, till one of the company, who ap- 
peared to be the sachem of his tribe, said he had come to see 
"f;iir play," and avowed it to be honorable for two Indians to 
contend with one white man. Jacob, therefore, imagined he 
would have rather a difficult task to accomplish : but plucking 
up courage, he exerted himself to the utmost, and on the very 
first encounter, laid them both upon the ground, and gave them a 
'• sound dnibbing." The other, who was looking on, was not at 
all disposed to assist his brethren, and gave them no other en- 
couragement than " Poor dogs, poor dogs ! me hope he kill 

^ J. W. l^irber. Connecticut Historical Collections, p. C99. 



INDIAN TALK 353 

you both ! ! " However, Jacob, after "pounding them " a short 
time, suffered them to escape. But the next day he saw them 
coming again, and the individual who imagined himself his cred- 
itor, bearing a rifle, which he was in the act of loading. But in 
thrusting his hand into his pocket to find the ball, he drew out 
the identical bill which he had received two days before ! Con- 
science-struck, he said to Jacob, who was coming to meet him, 
" Me believe, now, Jacob, you paid me de tenor bill ! " After 
this confession, Jacob addressed the person who had come to see 
"{:\ir play." "You," said he, "that have come to see fair play, 
what do you advise us to do with him?" "Tie him to de tree and 
whip him," was the reply, which was done accordingly. And here 
a circumstance occurred, which shows to what extent the Indians 
carried their principle of honor. The individual in question, 
after this humiliating treatment, became so dejected that he fled 
from his tribe, and was never heard of afterwards.^ _ 

The rude justice of the Indians may be further exem- 
plified by an anecdote reported by the Rev. John Hecke- 
welder. In 1785 an Indian who had been disowned by his 
tribe on account of his bad character killed a white man 
at Pittsburg. The chiefs of the Delawares were invited to 
be present at his trial, and, if they wished, to defend him. 
They sent the following pointed answer to the civil au- 
thorities : — 

Brethren ! You inform us that N. N. who murdered one of 
your men at Pittsburg, is shortly to be tried by the laws of your 
country, at which trial you request that some of us may be 
present ! Brethren ! knowing N. N. to have been always a very 
bad man, we do not wish to see him ! \Ve, therefore, advise you 
to try him by your laws, and to hang him, so he may never 
return to us again." 

1 Barber, as above, p. 427. 

2 Heckewelder, Account of the History, Manners, and Customs, of the 
Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring 
States, Philadelphia, 1819, p. 97. 

23 



|i,.| I III tun I'Aiail U"', AIMANAt K 

I lull llh III I .tllril hull. Ill W.lll.inl .l|i|ir.ii', |<i lie lillc to 

\\\e h|iiiii i>i .iJiiiii^Mii.il jiiatico, uh \V( II .ii i" k i.im nimc 
trucp^ til liiiiil tol.ii III llir Uiimri wlih li It ^iur.i to the 
ii)(i^;iitiiilr itiiij th< <l« Iiiii|ii(-iit. It KiiKUiii to (Utritiiinc 
wlhllin il'i iluijr-i I i>i al'iii tiih l<> III* pi < miiiiu i.il i< mi .iikI 
layillas o| tlif l',nt-;llili iihcd Ity tin iiUm i|.;mi •.. Ilu^ (H- 
t|iiii s, whit h will tli'io ^MVf n->iilt-i l.i\ m.ililc to tlir vfi'iai- 
iililillhlr I.I tlli» iHCrlioilh tl.t, mil. Ill, will I ii.iMr ii . |.> |»a!l!* 

Ill uvicwd iiiiiuliii <)| cxccrJSlvil)' > 111 inii'i |iir»iriol lu;>lttry 

lUld tlilllltioM. 

( »iii 111. I tliret* M|»t«cln\ena romr iiom ih. i <>iiit miM.i.iiy 

lUlluUi ol \\i\\\.[ l'llili|»'s Will. riic\' iWr pU'Mfl veil III " i'ht* 
ririt'iil ^it.ll^• ol Nrw I' n^'j.iMtl . . . I.ullllilllv « om|>o'ii'(l l»y 
it l\l. i( li.iiit ol Hi.MiMi, .111(1 t oiuiiuiiin .il> >l to hi', riniul in 
1 oiiiloii." whi.h \\ A\ |>iilili'.lii'il 111 10^5' 

Alioiil the I i^M ol .//«i,'.VA/' (willtrj t>iii Horiton M\nthimt|, Cap 
lain ,l/.M./i' willi hlxty Mrn, iiu-l with d « ompduy, jml^rtl tihoul 
tlurr luimlii (I /(h/hiH\, in a pl.im pl.uc wlirir few Tirea werSi 
timl oi\ both hitlr"H pifpaidtioiiri wcw niukinj* lor ii llattlr ; nil 
hriiiy irtnly on holh Miili-'i to liylit, (.'aptniu Mo.<i^i(-v pliu kctl oil' 
hU IVilwly, mill pill ii ml., hin HreeohuN, hfomihr ii mIlhiLI ii..i 
hiutli'i him in li^hiiu}^. .A-, hoon an ihr InJiana m\\ thai, thry 
Icll a Howling and Wiling moHl hldcoiiNly, and Haiil, I'mh, umh 
m* Hfi stimmttrtf Ji^ihf Jin^h mom, /(Mj;ii mom ^y/ ^co ht^ii, 

HM^i-'i MOM j^Of h<>0 h(^ifi {f Mt( i'Mi off MM ^C«/, h(f f^Ot MOitcr, «l 

f>Mt OM ^f«/f/' <ia' <//.»,• wllh Huch likti woiiIh In broken /CMj^/it/t, and 

avvav thry all llcd .unl » .nilil imt bf ovcilikin, not rirrii any inorr 
ttJlfjwardo.' 

Soiuc ol ihf wonis \n this i\\\ccv iMithurst are ui^intelli- 
i>ildi' and pioluiMy mispiintcd '• IM* no •itawnicnc li^ht 
Kn^U n\o\\" is «n or«cle thul iletifs iiUerprciation In p.en- 
nal, h»n\TVt*r, the passage Is |d.iin enoiip.h. .md it b.i-. iin 
n>mn»oi\ intiMfrtt b>r the htmlcnt ol lolk l«>n- I lu Indians, 

' till' I'u'bpnl Slrtln >«l Now I'ngl.tiiil, I imhIkii. if>,'s, p u 



INDIAN TALK 



355 



it seems, were quite ready to admit the possibility of a 
man's removing his head at will, although they were well 
aware that they had no such strange powers themselves. 
In this belief they were in accord with a widespread article 
of popular superstition, which occurs in one form or an- 
other from India to Ireland. One of the best of the 
ancient Irish sagas, The Feast of Bricriu, which is con- 
tained in a manuscript of about iioo and must be two or 
three centuries older than that, tells of a giant who allowed 
himself to be decapitated on condition that he should have 
the right to treat his assailant in the same way, and who 
appeared the next evening with his head iji its proper place 
to claim the fulfilment of the bargain. This story got into 
French in some way as early as the thirteenth century, and 
reappears in the fine old English romance of Gawain and 
the Green Knight, written by an anonymous poet who 
lived in the time of Chaucer. 

Another bit of Indian English is preserved by the same 
contemporary witness in his account of the execution of 
an Indian in 1675. After the culprit had been hanged, 
" then came an Indian , a Friend of his, and with his Knife 
made a hole in his Breast to his Heart, and sucked out 
his Heart-Blood : Being asked his reason therefore, his 
answer, Umh, umh nu, Me stronger as I was before, me be 
so strong as me and he too, he be ver strong Man fore 
he die."i 

Shocking as this story is to modern nerves, it is un- 
doubtedly true, although the author is anonymous and we 
have no other testimony to the occurrence. For it accords 
too exactly with what is known of savage psychology all 
over the world to be a fabrication. It is a well-known 
article of faith among many wild races that one may in- 
herit the strength or prowess of a slain man by tasting his 
blood or eating some part of his body, and many canni- 

1 'J'he same, p. 13, 



356 THE OLD farmer's ALMANACK 

balistic practices are based rather on this behef than on an 
appetite for human flesh. 

A more agreeable anecdote, also containing a sample of 
Indian English, is given by the same writer. An English- 
man, being left for dead after one of the skirmishes, " was 
found by a Friend Indian, he took him up and said, Umh, 
mnh poo Ingismoji, inee save yow life, mee take yow to Cap- 
tain Mosee ; he carries him fifteen Miles the day after to 
Captain Moselcy, and now this Man is well again and in 
good Health." ^ 

Canonchet, otherwise known as Nanuntenoo, chief sa- 
chem of the Narragansetts, one of King Philip's most for- 
midable allies, was surprised by a company of English 
and friendly Indians, and, despairing of an escape, surren- 
dered in April, 1676. A memorable passage in Hubbard 
describes his demeanor: — 

One of the first English that came up with him, was Robert 
Stanton, a young man that scarce had reached the twenty second 
year of his Age, yet adventuring to ask him a question, or two, 
to whom this manly Sachem, looking with a little neglect upon 
his youthful face, replyed in broken English ; you much Child, 
no understand matters of War ; let your brother, or your chief 
come, him I will Answer ; and was as good as his word ; Acting 
herein, as if by a Pythagorean Metempsychosis, some old Roman 
Ghost had possessed the body of this Western Pagan ; And like 
Attilius Regulus, he would not accept of his own Life, when it 
was tendred him, upon that (in his account) low Condition of 
Complyance with the English, refusing to send an old Counsellour 
of his to make any motion that way, saying he knew the Indians 
would not yield. ^ 

An extremely curious piece of Indian English occurs in 
New-England's Crisis, a poem on King Philip's War writ- 
ten by Benjamin Tompson in 1676. Tompson, who was a 

1 The Present State of New-England, London, 1675, p. 14. 

2 Hubbard's Narrative, Boston, 1677, Postscript, p. 8. 



INDIAN TALK 357 

graduate of Harvard College, a physician, and an eminent 
schoolmaster, is described on his tombstone as " the 
renouned poet of New England." New-England's Crisis 
is his chief work. After a prologue in praise of simplicity 
— an ingenious adaptation to New-England of a famous 
passage in Boethius — Tompson describes King Philip as 
holding an assembly of his " peers " and his " commons " 
and delivering an oration against the colonists. This 
speech is partly in good English, but it is variegated with 
imitations of the Indian pronunciation and syntax. There 
are even two native Indian words, — wimnegin, which 
means " good," ^ and matchit, which means " bad," ^ — 
both of which were of course perfectly familiar to the 
whites. Tompson passes for the earliest native American 
poet. At all events, he must be credited with the first 
piece of " dialect verse " ever written in this country. In 
the extract which follows, the punctuation has been 
regulated, but no other changes have been made : — 

And here methinks I see this greazy Lout, 

With all his pagan slaves coil'd round about, 

Assuming all the majesty his throne 

Of rotten stump, or of the rugged stone, 

Could yield ; casting some bacon-rine-like looks. 

Enough to fright a Student from his books, 

Thus treat his peers, & next to them his Commons, 

Kennel'd together all without a summons : — 

" My friends, our Fathers were not half so wise 

As we our selves, who see with younger eyes ; 

They sel our land to english man, who teach 

Our nation all so fast to pray and preach. 

Of all our countrey they enjoy the best, 

And quickly they intend to have the rest. 

This no wunnegin ; so big matchit law, 

Which our old fathers fathers never saw 

These english make,. and we must keep them too, 

Which is too hard for us or them to doe. 

1 See Trumbull, Natick Dictionary, 1903, p. 202. 

2 See Trumbull, p. 50 (s. v. matche). 



358 THE OLD farmer's alm.\xack 

We drink, we so big whipt ; but english they 

Go sneep, no more, or else a little pay. 

Me meddle Squaw, me hang'd ; our fathers kept 

What Squaws they would, whither they wakt or slept. 

Now, if you'le tight, He get you english coats. 

And wine to drink out of their Captains throats. 

The richest merchants houses shall be ours ; 

Wee'l ly no more on matts or dwell in bowers. 

VVee'l have their silken wives; take they our Squaws ! 

They shall be whipt by virtue of our laws. 

If ere we strike, tis now, before they swell 

To greater swarmes then we know how to quell. 

This ray resolve, let neighbouring Sachems know, 

And every one that hath club, gun, or bow." 

This was assented to, and, for a close. 

He strokt his smutty beard and curst his foes.^ 

Philip's comparison between penalties for Indians and 
penalties for English is very pithily expressed, and it is 
precisely here that the Indianisms are most marked : — 

We drink, we so big whipt ; but English they 
Go sneep, no more, or else a little pay. 

That is, " If we Indians get drunk, we are severely 
whipped. But if the English get drunk, they merely go 
and sleep it off, or perhaps have to pay a slight fine." 
Tompson was a scholar, a student of the tongues. Possi- 
bly he was here reproducing an actual bit of " Indian 
talk." At all events, he must be pretty close to the lin- 
guistic facts. The use of sneep for sleep corresponds with 
what has often been observed, — the Indian substitution 
of ;/ for / in English words. Massasoit always called his 
friend Winslow " Winsnow." 

Tompson's sketch of King Philip is not flattering. It 
reminds one of the alleged portrait of the Indian potentate 
engraved by Paul Revere in 1772.^ This is so ugly as to 

^ Tompson, New-England's Crisis, Club of Odd Volumes, 1S94, pp. lo-ii. 

- For the second edition of Church's History of King Philip's War 
(Boston, 1772); reproduced by S. G. Drake, Book of the Indians, Sth ed., 
Boston, 1S41. 



INDIAN TALK 359 

be almost repulsive. It has, of course, no claim to be 
regarded as a likeness, and is not without a suggestion of 
deliberate caricature. Our ancestors had no temptation 
to idealize their inveterate enemy. His memory was not 
only terrible but odious as well, and they expressed their 
feelings, whether with pen or graver, with tlie vigor of 
their day. 

We have, unfortunately, no good contemporary drawing 
of a New England Indian of King Philip's time. On the 
opposite page, however, may be seen a trustworthy repre- 
sentation of such an Indian. This is taken from a sketch 
made by Mr. C. C. Willoughby of the Peabody Museum 
of Archjeolog)- and Ethnolog}-, Harvard University, under 
the direction of Professor F. \V. Putnam. It is the result 
of a VQT\- ingenious process of scientific reconstruction. 
The proper proportions of the figure were ascertained 
from a perfect skeleton of a Massachusetts Indian un- 
earthed at Winthrop by Professor Putnam in iSSS. The 
rank of this warrior was indicated by various objects that 
were buried with him, and we even know the manner of 
his death ; for there was an arrow point sticking in the 
inside of a lumbar vertebra, which showed that he had 
been shot through the abdomen. The skull was carefully 
measured to get the shape of the head and the propor- 
tions of the face. A series of experiments undertaken 
by Dr. Thomas Dwight, of the Harvard Medical School, 
gave the thickness of the flesh for the ditt'erent parts of 
the face. Details of facial expression were taken from a 
photograph of a member of a related tribe, the Winneba- 
goes, who may be presumed to resemble their Algonquin 
brethren of New England. The shirt, leggings, and 
moccasins were drawn from specimens in the Peabody 
Museum which accorded with descriptions of Massachusetts 
Indians in writings of the seventeenth century. The feathers 
in the hair were copied from photographs of Ojibways, 



360 THE OLD FARMER'S ALM.\XACK 

but are equally good for Xew England, as the old au- 
thorities prove. The beads round the neck were from 
specimens actually found with the skeleton already men- 
tioned. The belt was taken from a bead-embroidered 
girdle, traditionally said to have belonged to King Philip 
himself. The bow is a copy of the only Massachusetts 
weapon of the kind known to be in existence. This has 
an authentic pedigree extending back to 1665. when it was 
taken from a Sudbury Indian who had been shot by a 
white man. Both belt and bow may still be seen in the 
Museum. The arrow was drawn from specimens in the 
same collection, and its length was carefully adjusted to 
the size of the bow.^ Altogether, then, we have in this 
figure a representation of an old Massachusetts warrior 
which is quite as correct as if it had been sketched by 
a draughtsman of the old time ; and the learning and 
ingenuity of the reconstructive process add to the interest 
of the picture. It will be observed that our Indian holds 
the bow in his left hand and the arrow in his right, as 
he should. In this he follows actual custom and the dic- 
tates of practical utility, as well as the ancient seal of the 
Massachusetts Bay Company.-^ It is to be regretted that 
the Great Seal of the Commonwealth, even in its latest 
design, as adopted in iS^S.^ perpetuates an error made, 
apparently, in 17S0, and depicts an Indian who can only 
be described as left-handed. The mere transposition of 
two words in the Act of 1SS5.* which defines the seal, 
would bring the law into accordance with the facts. Let 
us hope that the General Court may see its way to this 
slight but significant reform. 

The following stor>* is told by Captain Nathaniel Uring 

1 These details are given on the basis of a communication from Pro- 
fessor Putnam to the writer. 

* On various forms of the seal see Massachusetts Documents. iSS5, 
House, No. 345 ; E. H. Garrett. Xew England Magazine. 1901. XXHI. 6^3 it. 

* Acts of 1S9S, ch. 519. * Acts of^SSs, ch. 2SS, 



INDIAN TALK 36 1 

in his account of his visit to Boston in 1709.' It docs 
not appear whence ho derived it, but the two stories ini- 
mediatel)' precediui;- were told him by Governor Joseph 
Dudlc)' hiniseh" and by Paul Dudley, his son. 

A third Story is told of the Governour and an Ituiian, which 
may not be improper to shew the Subtilty of the Natives. Gov- 
ernour Dudly was a Man of very good Understanding, and was 
very industrious in improving his Plantation : He observing a 
lusty Indian almost naked, took Occasion one Day to ask him, 
why he did not work to purchase something to keep him from 
the Cold? The Fellow asked the Governour, why he did not 
work? \<\\o told him. he worked with his Head, and had no 
Occasion to work with his llaniis as he must. The Indian said, 
If any one would employ him, he would work. The Governour 
asked him to kill him a Calf, for which he would give him a 
Shilling. The Indian readily undertook it, and killed the Calf; 
but observing he did not go about to skin it, asked him, why 
he did not make haste to skin and dress it? the Indian an- 
swered. No, no, Coponoh : that was not in my Bargain, I was 
to have a Shilling for killing it, /le no dead Coponoh [?] The 
Governour seeing the Fellow witty upon him, bid him dress 
it, and he would give him another Shilling : The Indian having 
finished his \Vork, and being paid, went to an Alehouse, where 
they sold Rum, which was near the Goveruour's House, where 
he spent some of his Money in that Liquor, which they are all 
great Lovers of; and whether he had Brass Money of his own, 
or whether the House furnished him with it, is out of my Story; 
but he went back to the Governour, and told him, he had given 
him bad Money, who seeing it Brass, readily gave him another ; 
and soon after the Fellow went back with a Second, which the 
Governour also changed, but knew the Fellow had put upon him ; 
and seeing him next Day, called to him and told him he must 
carry a Letter presently to Boston, which he wrote to the Keeper 
of Bridnuell, in order to have the fellow well lashed ; but he 

^ History of the Voyages and Travels of Capt. Nathaniel Uring, London, 
1726, pp. 1 20-1. 



362 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

apprehending the Consequence, and seeing another Indian in 
the Road, he gave him the Letter, telUng him, the Governour 
said he must carry that Letter presently to Boston. The poor 
Fellow took it innocently, and having delivered the Letter as 
directed, was whip'd very severely ; the Governour soon after 
seeing the Indian again, asked him, if he had carried the Letter 
he sent him with? He answered, No, no, Coponoh, Head work, 
pointing to his Head : The Governour was so well pleased with 
the Fellow's Answer, he forgave him. 

An instructive piece of Indian social philosophy is given 
on the authority of the Rev. John Heckewelder, for a long 
time missionary among the Pennsylvania aborigines : — 

An aged Indian, who for many years had spent much of his 
time among the white people both in Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey, one day about the year 1770 observed, that the Indians 
had not only a much easier way of getting a wife than the whites, 
but were also more certain of getting a good one ; " For," (said 
he in his broken EngUsh,) " White man court, — court, — may 
be one whole year ! — may be two year before he marry ! — well ! 
— may be then got very good wife — but may be not ! — may be 
vet-y cross ! — Well now, suppose cross ! scold so soon as get 
awake in the morning ! scold all day ! scold until sleep ! — all 
one ; he must keep him ! White people have law forbidding 
throwing away wife, be he ever so cross ! must keep him always ! 
Well ! how does Indian do ? — Indian when he see industrious 
Squaw, which he like, he go to hitn, place his two forefingers 
close aside each other, make two look like one — look Squaw in 
the face — see him smile — which is all one he say. Yes ! so he 
take him home — no danger he be cross ! no ! no ! Squaw know 
too well what Indian do if he cross ! — throw hiin away and take 
another ! Squaw love to eat meat ! no husband ! no meat ! 
Squaw do everything to please husband ! he do the same to 
please Squaw! live happy !"^ 

1 Heckewelder, Account of the History, Manners, and Customs, of the 
Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring 
States, 1819, pp. 1 51-2. 



INDIAN TALK ^6t, 

Local tradition in Natick, as reported in 1830, is respon- 
sible for two or three short samples of Indian English. 

A devout Indian of Natick, Deacon Ephraim, described 
as " an ornament to the Christian society for many years," 
was asked why young Indians who were educated in 
English families, so often became drunken and disorderly 
when they grew up, although they had behaved well so 
long as they were under tutelage. " Ducks will be ducks," 
replied the old man, " notwithstanding they are hatched 
by the hen," or, in his own words and pronunciation, 
" Tucks will be tucks, for all ole hen he hatchum." ^ 

Another Natick Indian went to Boston in the fall with a 
load of brooms and baskets, and purchased a dram. The 
next spring, on a similar occasion, the same storekeeper 
charged him twice as much for the same quantity of liquor. 
The Indian naturally asked the reason for this increase in 
price, and was informed that the dealer had kept the cask 
through the winter and that this was as expensive as to 
keep a horse. " Hah," grunted the customer, " he no eat 
so much hay; but I believe he drink as much water." ^ 

Mr. Ebenezer Peabody was minister at Natick from 
1 72 1 to 1752. In praying for rain, he made use of the 
biblical formula, " May the bottles of heaven be unstopped 
and a plentiful supply of rain be poured down on the 
thirsty earth." The rain came almost immediately and 
lasted for many days. One of Mr. Peabody's Indian con- 
gregation, who happened to meet him, observed : " I 
believe them are bottles you talk about be unstopped, and 
the stopples be lost." ^ 

This story of Mr. Peabody recalls an extraordinary 
contest on a similar occasion between an Indian wizard 
and Mr. Fitch, of Norwich, Connecticut. The incident is 

1 Biglow, History of Natick, 1830, p. 81. 

2 Tlie same, p. 86. Elsewhere this anecdote is told of a Connecticut 
River Indian. '^ The same, p. 86. 



364 THE OLD farmer's ALiM.\NACK 

dated August 3, 1676, and is too curious to be omitted, 
though it adds nothing to our knowledge of the Indian 
manner of speaking English. As told by Increase Mather ^ 
it brings to mind vividly the narrative of Elijah's discom- 
fiture of the priests of Baal in the eighteenth chapter of 
First Kings ; but it seems better to give the story in Mr. 
Fitch's own words : — 

Concerning the Drought, cr'c'. the true Narrative of that Provi- 
dence is this, 

In August last, such was the want of rain, that the Indian corn 
was not only dryed and parched up, but the apple-trees withered, 
the fruit and leaves fell off as in Autumn, and some trees seemed 
to be dead with that Drought : the Indians came into town and 
lamented their want of rain, and that their Potvawes could get 
none in their way of worship, desiring me that I would seek to 
God for rain : I appointed a Fast day for that purpose. The 
day being come, it proved cleer without any clouds, untill sun- 
setting, when we came from the Meeting, and then some Clouds 
arose ; the next day remained cloudy, then Uncus with many 
Indians came to my house, Uncas lamented there was such 
want of Rain ; I asked whether if God should send us rain, he 
would not attribute it to their Powawes : He answered no, for 
they had done their uttermost and all in vain: I replyed, if you 
will declare it before all these Indians, you shall see what God 
will doe for us ; For although this year he hath shewn his anger 
against the English, and not only against the Indians, yet he hath 
begun to save us, and I have found by experience twice in the 
like case, when we sought by Fasting and Prayer, he hath given 
us Rain, and never denyed us. Then Uncas made a great speech 
to the Indians (which were many) confessing that if God should 
then send rain it could not be ascribed to their powawing, but 
must be acknowledged to be an answer of our prayers. This day 
the clouds spread more and more, and the next day there was 

1 A Brief History of the War with the Indians, London, 1676, p. 45, 
ed. Drake, pp. 1S9-90. 



INDIAN TALK 365 

such plenty of rain that our River rose more than two foot in 
height.^ 

A still later piece of aboriginal English comes from 
Maine, and, though it gives no idea of pronunciation, is of 
peculiar interest for other reasons. On August 31, 1838, 
there was a great Council of the Tarratines and allied 
tribes, at Oldtown, Maine, to discuss the election of a new 
sachem. This meeting was the result of a combination 
against the authority of John Neptune, who claimed to 
be sachem for life, but whose addiction to strong waters 
and other indulgences had caused a good deal of dissatis- 
faction. " He is the moon," said one of the speakers, 
" that often grows larger, then smaller. For sometimes 
he loves his Indians very much ; by 'nd by, he don't love 
'em so much. No, no, — he love 'em best some woman- 
kind, — not his own squaw. . . . Well, his Indians say, 
We have him ' sachem ' no longer. They want a good 
governor, like old Orono ; — to speak wisdom, — to show 
'em good works. Such one is governor for life. Not so 
the bad one. When his heart be very wicked, his walk 
crooked, 't is right to leave him.'" 

For this speech we have unimpeachable evidence. It 
is reported by Mr. W. D. Williamson, the historian of 
Maine, in a paper sent to the Massachusetts Historical 
Society in the next year, 1839.^ 

A specimen of John Neptune's eloquence in English 
is also recorded by Mr. Williamson. In 1816 an Indian 
named Susup killed William Knight, a tavern keeper at 
Bangor, who had turned him out-of-doors because of his 
drunken turbulence. Susup was indicted for murder and 
tried in the Supreme Court at Castine, in June, 181 7. The 
verdict was manslaughter, and when the court asked 

1 Hubbard, Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians, Boston, 1677, 
pp. I 13-14. 

2 Collections, 3d Series, IX, 97-98. 



366 THE OLD farmer's ALM-\NACK 

Susup if he had anyrhing to say. he called upon John 
Xeptune to speak for him : — 

That Indian then stepped forward from the midst of his asso- 
ciates, towards the Judges, and dehberately addressed them in an 
impressive speech of several minutes. He spake in broken Eng- 
lish, yet ever)- worvi was distinctly heard and easily understood. 
His gestmres were frequent and forcible ; his manner solemn ; 
and a breathless silence per\-aded the whole assembly. — He 
began — ''You know, your people do my Indians great de.U of 
wrong. — They abuse them ver\- much ; yes, they murder them ; 
then they walk right on — nobody touches them. This makes my 
heart burn. Well, then my Indians say, we '11 go kill your ver\- 
bad and wicked men. No, I tell 'em, never do that thing ; we 
are brothers. — Sometime ago a very bad man about Boston, shot 
an Indian dead ; — your people said, surely he should die ; but 
it was not so. — In the great prison-house he eats and lives to 
this day ; certain he never dies for killing Indian. My brothers 
say, let that bloody man go free ; — Peol Susup too. So we wish 
— hope fills the hearts of us all. — Peace is good. These, my 
Indians, love it well: they smile under its shade. The white 
men and red men must be alwa>-s friends ; — the Great Spirit is 
our Father ; — I speak what I feel." 

Susup was sentenced to another year's imprisonment; and 
required to find sureties for keeping the peace two years, in the 
penal sum of $500 ; when John Xeptune, and 'Squire Jo Merr)- 
Neptune, of his own tribe, Capt. Solmond, from Passiimaquoddy, 
and Capt. Jo Tomer, from the river St. John, became his sureties 
in the recognizance.* 

John Neptune's eloquence, it seems, was not unavailing. 

I \V. D. Williamson. History of Maine. Hallowell, 1S32, I, 501-3. Mr. 
WUliaunson was Susup s counse". 



MORE INDIAN TALK 

IN the previous chapter we have considered oral dis- 
course chiell)', and most of our examples have been 
of a conversational sort. There are also, of course, 
a g^ood many written documents of a more or less formal 
character. These are generall}' the work of some con- 
verted native who had been taught to read and write in 
the Indian schools established under Eliot's influence. 
Sometimes the scribe is known, and usuall)- his identity 
is not beyond a reasonable guess. 

An undated letter from King Philip to Governor Prince 
ma\- head the list. The authorship is usually credited to 
John Sassamon, the praying Indian who at one time acted 
as Philip's secretary and whose tragic fate (^told elsewhere 
in this book) was the signal for the outbreak of hostilities.^ 
The exact date of the epistle is unknown. The irregulari- 
ties are chiefly syntactical ; the spelling is quite as good 
as that o( most records of the time and throws little light 
on the peculiarities o( pronunciation. 

To the much honored govorner lur. thouias prince, dwelling at 
plimouth 

honered sir, 

King philip desire to let you understand that he could 
not come to the court, for tom his interpreter has a pain in his 
b.ick tliat he could not travil so far, and philips sister is verey sik. 
Philip would intreat that faver of you and aney of the maies- 
trats, if aney english or engians speak about aney land he pray 
you to give them no ansewer at all. the last sumer he maid that 
1 See p. 76, above. ' 



368 THE OLD FARMER'S ALM.VNACK 

promis with you that he would not sell no land in 7 years time 

for that he would have no english trouble him before that time 

he has not forgat that you promis him 

he will come asune as possible he can to speak with )-ou 

and so I rest your veiy loving frind philip dweling at mount 

hope nek.^ 

Another document of Philip's, dated 1666, also concerns 
the vital question of selling land to the settlers. It amounts 
to a power of attorney appointing two Indians his general 
agents in such matters. It begins with great decorum but 
soon runs oti into unconventionality : — 

Know all men by these presents, that fiti/i/> haue giuen power 
\-nto Watuihpoo and Stifft/son and theire brethren to hold and 
make sale of to whom they will by my consent, and they shall not 
haue itt without they be wilUng to lett it goe it shal be sol by my 
consent, but without my knowledge they cannot safely to : but 
with my consent there is none that can lay claime to that land 
whic'n they haue marked out, it is theires foreuer, soe therefore 
none can safely purchase any otherwise but by Ji\jfs4.ys/w and 
SuM^tm and their bretheren. 

Philip 1666.* 

In April, 1676. Tom Dublet. alias Xepanet. one of the 
friendly Natick Indians who were tlien confined on Deer 
Island, was despatched to King Philip's quarters to negoti- 
ate for the release of Mrs. Rowlandson. wife of the minister 
of Lancaster, and other captives who had been taken at 
tlie sack of that town. Tom soon returned with a written 
reply : — 

^^'e no give answer by this one man, but if }-ou like my answer 
sent one more man besides this one Tom Nepcmet, and send with 
all tnie heart and with all your mind by two men ; because you 

1 The Massachusetts Magazine, for May, irSa T. 2~6. The copy in Coll. 
Mass. Hist. Soc., 1703. II, 40. \-ariej: slightly. 

3 Drake, Book of the Indians, Sth ed., Boston, iiv4i. bk. iii. p, 14. 



MORE INDIAN TALK 369 

know and wc know your heart great sorrowful with crying for your 
lost many many hundred man and all your house and all your land 
and woman child and cattle as all your thing that you have lost 
and on your backside stand. 

Sam, Sachem, 
KuTQUEN, and 
QuANOHiT, Sagamores. 
Peter Jethro, scribe. 

Mr. Rowlandson, your wife and all your child is well but one 
dye. Your sister is well and her 3 child. John Kittell, your 
wife and all your child is all well, and all them prisoners taken at 
Nashua is all well. 

Mr. Rowlandson, se your loving sister his hand C Hanah. 

And old Kettel wif his hand. + 

Brother Rowlandson, pray send thre pound of Tobacco for me, 
if you can my loving husband pray send thre pound of tobacco 
for me. 

This writing by your enemies — Samuel Uskattuhgun and 
Gunrashit, two Indian sagamores.^ 

The confused postscript may need a word of explanation. 
It was intended to convince the Council that the prison- 
ers were alive and well. Mr. Rowlandson's sister-in-law, 
Hannah DivoU, signs with her mark. The tobacco which 
Mrs. Rowlandson asks her husband to send her was of 
course to be used in mollifying her captors. Subsequently, 
when Mr. John Hoar went to negotiate for the release of 
the captives, he carried Mrs. Rowlandson a pound of 
tobacco, which she immediately sold to the Indians for 
" nine shillings in mony." " For many of the Indians,'' 
she tells us, " for want of Tobacco, smoaked Hemlock, and 
Ground-Ivyy There follows the remark, somewhat start- 
ling to us nowadays: — "It was a great mistake in any, 

1 The same, bk. iii, p. 90, apparently from the MS., which cannot now be 
found. Most of the letter is given by Gookin, Historical Account, Coll. 
Am. Antiq. Soc, II, 508. 

24 



370 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

who thought I sent for Tobacco: for through the favour 
of God, that desire was overcome." ^ We must remember, 
however, that the habit of smoking was by no means rare 
amongst women in the seventeenth and even in the eight- 
eenth century. EarHer in her narrative Mrs. Rowlandson 
confesses to the seductiveness of a couple of pipes : — 
"Then I went to see King Philip, he bade me come in 
and sit down, and asked me whether I would smoke it 
(a usual Complement now adayes amongst Saints and 
Sinners) but this no way suited me. For though I had 
formerly used Tobacco, yet I had left it ever since I was 
first taken. It seems to be a Bait, the Devil layes to make 
men loose their precious time: I remember with shame, how 
formerly, when I had taken two or three pipes, I was pres- 
ently ready for another, such a bewitching thing it is : But 
I thank God, he has now given me power over it: surely 
there are many who may be better imployed than to ly 
sucking a stinking Tobacco-pipe."^ 

Peter Jethro, who acted as scribe on this occasion, was 
the son of a Natick Indian called Jethro or Tantamous. 
Old Jethro had escaped when the friendly Indians were 
being conducted to Deer Island for safe keeping, and was 
now, like his son, in the ranks of the enemy. Later, it 
appears, Peter went back to the whites and was employed 
as a spy. It is to him that Mrs. Rowlandson refers when 
she says, " There was another Yxzyxvi^- Indian, who when 
he had done all the mischief that he could, betrayed his 
own Father into the English hands, thereby to purchase 
his own life." ^ His epitaph is an emphatic utterance of 
Increase Mather: — "That abominable Indian Peter Jethro 
betrayed his own Father, and other Indians of his special 
acquaintance, unto Death." * 

1 Narrative, 1682, p. 56 (Nourse and Thayer's facsimile;. 

2 The same, p. 24. ^ The same, p. 50. 

* An Historical Discourse concerning the Prevalency of Prayer 1677, 
p. 6, ed. Drake, Early History of New England, 1864, pp. 257-8. 



MORE INDIAN TALK 37 1 

Another Indian letter concerning the same negotiations, 
though unsigned, is thought to be the work of James 
Printer, a native who has an honorable name in the history 
of American typography. He had been apprenticed to 
Samuel Green of Cambridge in 1659, but had joined his 
countrymen when the war broke out. Soon after the 
date of this letter, he gave himself up, was pardoned, and 
returned to his trade. He was Eliot's mainstay in setting 
up and correcting the second edition of the Indian Bible 
(published in 1685), and in 1709 his name is joined with 
Green's in the imprint of an English and Indian Psalter.^ 
James Printer's letter is preserved among the Hutchinson 
Papers.^ It was written at Philip's headquarters at VVachu- 
settj and runs as follows : — 

For the Governor and the Council at Boston 

The Indians, Tom Nepennomp and Peter Tatatiqunea hath 
brought us letter from you about the English Captives, especially 
for Mrs Rolanson ; the answer is I am sorrow that I haue don 
much wrong to you and yet I say the falte is lay upon you, for 
when we began quarel at first with Plimouth men I did not think 
that you should haue so much truble as now is : therefore I am 
wiUing to hear your desire about the Captives. Therefore we 
desire you to sent Mr Rolanson and goodman Kettel : (for their 
wives) and these Indians Tom and Peter to redeem their wives, 
they shall come and goe very safely : Whereupon we ask Mrs 
Rolanson, how much your husband willing to giue for you she 
gaue an answer 20 pound in goodes but John Kittels wife could 
not till, and the rest captives may be spoken of hereafter. 

The descendants of James Printer did not follow in the 
steps of their ancestor so far as learning is concerned. 
In 1728, when the Indian proprietors of Hassanamisco 

1 See Drake, Book of the Indians, 8th ed., bk. ii, pp. 50-51 ; Pilling, 
Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages, Washington, 1891, p. 348. 

2 II, 282. Here from Nourse and Thayer's edition of Mrs. Rowlandson's 
Narrative, Lancaster, 1903, pp. 97-98. 



372 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

(Grafton) conveyed the town to the English, Ami Printer, 
Moses Printer, and Ami Printer, Jr., signed the deed, each 
as owner of a seventh of the land, and all made their 
marks. It must be admitted, however, that these marks 
appear in every case to be the initial of the signer's name.^ 
The high standing of Waban is nowhere more conclu- 
sively shown than in three Indian letters in which he is 
actually addressed as "Mr. Waban," — a proud title in 
colonial times. The first of these was written in July, 
1676, and the others soon after. The fortunes of Philip 
had declined, and his allies were eager to make peace with 
the English. They are favorable specimens of aboriginal 
English.^ 

Mr. John Leveret, my Lord, Mr. Waban, and all the chief 
men our Brethren, Praying to God : We beseech you all to help 
us ; my Wife she is but one, but there be more Prisoners, which 
we pray you keep well : Muttamtick his Wife, we entreat you for 
her, and not onely that man, but it is the Request of two Sachems, 
Sam Sachem of Weshakum, and the Pakashoag Sachem. 

And then that further you will consider about the making 
Peace : We have spoken to the People of Nashobak (viz. Tom 
Diibler and Peter, ^ that we would agree with you, and make a 
Covenant of Peace with you : We have been destroyed by your 
Souldiers, but still we Remember it now, to sit still ; do you con- 
sider it again ; we do earnestly entreat you, that it may be so, by 
Jesus Christ, O ! let it be so ! Amen, Amen. 

It was Signed 
Muttamtick, his Mark N. Uppanippaquem, his — C. 

Sam Sachem, his Mark ^. Pakaskoag his Mark *. 
Simon Pottoquam, Scribe. 
Superscribed, To all English-men and Indians, all of you, hear 
Mr. Waban, Mr. Eliott. 

^ See F. C. Pierce, History of Grafton, p. 40. 

2 Preserved in A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences, 
etc., London, 1676, pp. 6 ff. 



MORE INDIAN TALK 373 

My Lord, Mr. Leveret at Boston, Mr, Waban, Mr. Elicit, Mr. 
Gooken, and Council,, hear ye. I went to Connecticott about 
the Captives, that I might bring them into your hands, and when 
we were almost there, the English had destroy'd those Indians ; 
when I heard it, I return'd back again ; then when I came home, 
we were also destroyed ; after we were destroyed, then Philip and 
Quanipun went away into their own Countrey again ; and I know 
they were much afraid, because of our offer to joyn with the 
English, and therefore they went back into their own Countrey, 
and I know they will make no Warre ; therefore because when 
some English men came to us, Philip and Quanapun sent to kill 
them ; but I said. If any kill them, I '11 kill them. 

Sam Sachefn. 

Written by Simon Boshokum Scribe. 

For Mr. Eliot, Mr. Gooken, and Mr. Waban. 

Consider of this I Intreat you, consider of this great businesse 
that is done ; and my wonder concerning Philip, but his Name is 

Wewesawanit, he engageth all the people that were none 

of his Subjects : Then when I was at Penakook, Nunipho John, 
Alline, Sam Numpho, and others who were angry, and Niunpho 
very much angry that Philip did engage so many people to him ; 
and Numpho said it were a very good deed that I should go and 
kill him that joyned so many to himself without cause : in like 
manner I said so too. Then had you formerly said be at peace, 
and if the Councill had sent word to Kill Philip we should have 
done it : then let us clearly speak, what you, and we shall do. 
O let it be so speedily, and answer us clearly. 

Pumkamun, 

Pon?iakpukun, 

or, Jacob Muttamakoog. 

Sam Sachem, or Sagamore Sam, was a Nashaway chief, 
whose Indian name was Shoshanim, We have already 
had a sample of his diplomatic correspondence in the 
letter to the Council in the case of Mrs. Rowlandson 



374 THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANACK 

(April, 1676).^ That letter, however, was conceived in a 
very different spirit from the first of the present series, 
and is probably a better index to the Sachem's charac- 
ter. The second of the series seems to contain more 
of the sagamore and less of the Christian scribe. Sam's 
attempts to make peace were futile. He was taken and 
hanged. Judge Sewall's Diary, under date of Septem- 
ber 26, 1676, records with matter-of-fact conciseness the 
result of the rigorous proceedings that followed King 
Philip's War: — " Sagamore Sam goes, and Daniel Goble 
is drawn in a Cart upon bed cloaths to Execution. . . . 
One ey'd John, Rlaliompe, Sagamore of Ouapaug, Gen- 
eral at Lancaster. &c, Jethro, (^the Father) walk to the 
Gallows." 

Four documents from the New Hampshire Provincial 
Papers may close the roll.^ They are from the distinguished 
Penacook sachem, John Hogkins, often called Hawkins. 
The first two are the composition of Simon Betogkom, the 
same person who wrote the letters from Sam Sachem just 
quoted. The variation in the spelling of his name — 
Bitogkon or Boshokiun — is by no means unexampled. 
Hogkins and his associates, it will be seen, are anxious for 
peaceful relations with the white men. Their letters or 
petitions were all presented at about the time when Gov- 
ernor Cranfield left the Province. The last of the series 
mentions the Governor's departure: — "He go away, so 
he say, at last night." It is addressed to Robert Mason, 
grandson and heir of Captain John, and claimant to the 
Proprietorship of New Hampshire. It is a satisfaction to 
know that a treaty of amity and reciprocal justice with the 
Indians was signed soon after.^ 

1 See pp. 36S-9, above. 

2 New Hampshire Provincial Papers, I, 5S3-5. There are several signa- 
tures, besides that of Hogkins to the tirst two letters. 

s Sept. S, 16S5 (Provincial Papers, I, 5SS). 



MORE INDIAN TALK 375 

May I5tli, 16S5. 

Honour Governor my friend, you my friend I desire your 
worship and your power Because I hope you can do som great 
matters this once I am poor and naked and I have no men at my 
place because 1 afraid allways mohogs [i. e., Mohawks] he will 
kill me every day and night if your worship when please pray 
help me you no let mohogs kill me at my place at INIalamake 
[i. e. Merrimac] Revir called Panukjcog and Natukkog I will 
submit your worship and your power and now I want powder 
and such allminishon shott and guns because I have forth at 
my horn and I plant theare. 

This all Indian hand but 
pray you do consider 

your humble Servant j^^^ HoGKiNS. 

May I5'^ 16S5. 

Honour mr Governor now this day I com your house I want 
se you and I Bring my hand at before you I want shake hand to 
you if your worship when please then you Receve my hand then 
shake your hand and my hand you my friend because I Remem- 
ber at old time when live my grant father and grant mother then 
Englishmen com this country then my grant f.\ther and English- 
men they make a good govenant they friend allwayes my grant 
father leving at place called malamake Rever other Name chef 
Natukkog and panukkog that one Rever great many names and 
I bring you this few skins at this first time I will give you my 
friend 

This all Indian hand John-1-hawkins Sagomor 

please your worship I will intreat your matther you my friend 
now this if my Indians he do you long [i. e., wrong] pray you no 
put your law because som my Indians fooll som men much love 
drunk then he no know what he do may be he do mischif when 
he drunk if so pray you must let me know what he done because 
I will ponis him what he have done you you my friend if you 
desire any business then sent me I will help you if I can 

Mr. John hogkins 



370 THE OLD farmer's ALM-\XACK 

mr mason pray I want speake you a few words if your worship 
when please because I com parf:\s [purpose] I will speake this 
Governor but he go away so he say at last night and so far I 
understand this governor his power that your power now so he 
speake his own mouth pray if you take what I want pray com to 
me because I want go horn at this day. 

your humble servant, 

John hogkins, Indian Sogmon. 
May i6'-\ 16S5. 

The rapid disappearance of the various Indian languages 
in central and southern New England is noteworthy, 
though not astonishing. Now and then the philologist 
has the nielanchol)- pleasure of being present at the last 
gasp o\ some aboriginal dialect No longer ago than 1903 
Mr. Frank G. Speck discovered a scanty remnant of the 
language of the Scaticook (^Skaghticoke^ Indians of Litch- 
field County. Connecticut, still lingering in the memory of 
one James Harris. " who claimed to be a full-blood." Harris 
had learned what he knew of the matter from his grand- 
mother, who was able to speak the language. He recollected 
but twent>'-three words and three connected sentences, one 
of which meant, as he interpreted it. " Hurry up to the 
hotel and get a drink,'" or more probably, as Professor 
Prince has made out, " Come along, my friends, and we 
will have a drink." ^ Either reading is significant enough. 
It may be added, since neither Mr. Speck nor Professor 
Prince notices the circumstance, that the late Benson J. 
Lossing visited the Skaghticoke reservation about 1S59 
and held a long conversation with Eunice Mahwee. a 
granddaughter of the Gideon Mahwee who is said to have 
formed the settlement in 172S. Mr. Lossing contributed 
an account of his visit to Scribner's Monthly for October, 

^ Prince .md Speck, Proceeding:? of the American Philosophical Society, 
XLII, 346 ff. 



MORE INDIAN TALK 377 

1871, under the title "The Last of the Pequods." ^ His 
article is provided with a portrait of Eunice Mahwee, who, 
when he saw her, was "just one hundred years old," and 
who regarded herself as the only pure-blooded survivor of 
her tribe. In 1836 Eunice Mawehu contributed informa- 
tion about her people to J, W. Barber; but neither Barber 
nor Lossing says anything about her knowledge of the In- 
dian language.^ Another Connecticut tribe, also studied 
by Mr. Speck, have remembered their native tongue better. 
In the village of Mohegan, near Norwich, live some fifty 
Pequots, and there are about fifty more in the adjacent 
towns who belong to the same group. Though all are 
American citizens, they still maintain the form of their old 
tribal government, and meet annuall}' in the church at 
Mohegan, — for they are sufficiently devout Congregation- 
alists, — to celebrate the ancient Green-corn Feast. Their 
habitual language is English, but two of the women, a Mrs. 
Fielding and her sister, are able to speak Pequot, and the 
former can write it with some fluenc}'.'^ In less than a 
generation, however, the old dialect v.ill undoubtedly dis- 
appear, though certain words and phrases, and perhaps a 
sentence or two, may linger in the memory of individuals. 
The discoveries of Mr. Speck carry one's imagination back 
to the fate of the ancient Cornish tongue, which ceased to 
be a living language when Dolly Pentreath died in 1777. 

Our discussion has led us far away from High Howder's 
writ as reported by Mr. Thomas,* but it may be hoped 

^ Reprinted by W. W. Beach, The Indian Miscellany, Albany, 1S77, 
pp. 45- ff 

- Connecticut Historical Collections, pp. 200, note, 471 ; see also Samuel 
Orcutt. The Indians of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Valleys, Hartford, 
18S2, pp. 197 ff. 

8 See Speck and Prince, American Anthropologist, 1903, New Series, 
V, 193 ff- 

* See p. ^23- 'ibove. 



3/8 



THE OLD FARMER S ALMANACK 



that our scrutiny of the literary efforts of our aboriginal 
predecessors has not been altogether devoid of interest. 
At all events, it has served to illustrate the diversity of 
subjects which occupied the mind of the Old Farmer and 
which lend character to his venerable Almanack. 




INDEX 



Abdy, E. S., on New England stages, 

293- 

Academies, in New England, 228 ff. ; 
Mr. Thomas on, 228 f. ; for women, 
230. 

Acadia, Jesuits in, 109. 

Accounts, squaring, 81 f., 99 f., 316. 

Adams, C. F., 172. 

Adams, John, on pettifoggers, 99 ; on 
New England institutions, 225 ; on 
American fondness for titles, 234 ; 
description of innkeepers, 264, 
269 f. 

Adams and Liberty, song, by R. T. 
Paine, 149. 

Addison on witchcraft, 114. 

Advertisements, 8 f., 137, 264 f-, 269, 
276 ff., 296 f., 315 ff. 

./Eschylus, 71. 

Agamemnon, murder of, 71 ; tragedy 
by .^schylus, 71. 

Agamenticus, Maine, murder at, 75. 

Agawam, Mass., 245. 

Agriculture, in the United States in 
1783, 17; improvements in, 21 ; ob- 
servations on, desired by Mr. 
Thomas, 25 f. ; Roman calendar of, 
78 f. ; Cato's precepts compared 
with Mr. Thomas's, 79 f. ; ])re- 
cepts of the Farmer's Calendar, 
80 ff. ; kitchen gardens, 84 ff. ; hired 
men, 85 f. 180; haymaking, 88, 
182 f. ; tradition in, 91 f. ; parsnips, 
gr f . ; cattle shows, 93; books on, 
128, 141 f., 309 f., 311 ff ; huskings, 
168 ff. ; changing works, 179 ff. ; in- 
sect pests, 179, 181, 186 f . ; wages, 
180; women as laborers, 182 f . ; 
crows and corn, 189 f. ; Indian sum- 
mer and the crops, 191, 198; rail- 
roads and, 301 f . ; moon and, 305 ff. 
See also Farmer's Almanack ; Far- 
mer's Calendar ; Indian corn ; 
Wheat. 



Agricultural fairs, 93. 

Ague cured by sympathetic remedy, 
117 ; spiders as remedy, 119. 

Air, theories about, 166 f. 

Air-pump, 307. 

Albany, N. Y., stage line from Boston 
to, 287 ; so-called Telegraph Line 
of stages, 296 ; railroad, 298 f. 

Alders, clearing land of, 312. 

Aldrich, T. B., on Sunday reading, 317. 

Alert, of U. S. Navy, 215. 

Alexander, Sir James, on Indians of 
Canada, 160. 

Algonquins, 359. 

Allen, J., gardener, 9. 

Allen, Dr. T., writing master, 5. 

Allen, William, U.D., on Waban and 
Indian warrant, 334 f. 

All-hallown summer, 193. 

Almanacs, astrology in, 39 ff., 43 ff., 
53 ff., 108 ; stamp duty on, 46 f. ; 
burlesques on, 40, 44 ff., 48 ff., 56 f. ; 
the Man of the Signs in, 53 ff. ; 
pictures in, 62 ff. ; miscellaneous 
•contents of, 71 ; circulated by 
peddlers, 139 ff. See also Calen- 
dar ; Farmer's Calendar. 

Almanacs: see Ames, Bickerstaff, 
liiilings, British, Browne, Carleton, 
Ciough, Dekker, Farmer's, Gad- 
bury, Kalender of Shepherdes, 
Partridge, Pond, Poor Robin, Poor 
Will, Rabelais, Raphael, Robie, 
Smith and Forman, Hiomas, I., 
Thomas, R. B., Travis, Woodward, 
Zadkiel. 

Altvveibersommer, 194. 

American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, 134, 152, 167, 198. 

American Anthropologist, 377. 

American Antiquarian Society, 16, 

337ff- 
American Philosophical Society, 126, 

376. 



38o 



INDEX 



Ames, Jonathan, and his mother, 
tried for murder, 74. 

Ames, Dr. Nathaniel, his almanac 
and his tavern, 59 f., 264 f., 304; as 
an astrologer, 59 f. ; his treatment 
of the Man of the Signs, 59 f. 

Ames, Dr. Nathaniel, Jr., on lawyers, 
103; on huskings, 172. 

Amherst, Mass., stage from Boston 
to, 288. 

Amsterdam Society for Rescue of the 
Drowned, 163 f. 

Amusements : see Angling ; Bowling ; 
Cattle shows; Christmas; Horse- 
races ; Hunting ; Huskings ; Music ; 
Playing cards ; Shows ; Shrovetide ; 
Skating; Spinning bees; Stool- 
ball ; Theatres ; Training ; Turkey- 
shooting. 

Anacreon in Heaven, tune, 149. 

Anatomy, or Man of the Signs, 53 ff., 
312. 

Ancient and Honorable Artillery 
Company, 211 f. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, 345. 

Anecdotes: Madam Hayley and the 
Dutch envoy, 11 f. ; Beast of Gevau- 
dun, 69 f. ; Murders Strangely Dis- 
covered, 72 f . ; dogs at table, 84; 
Neighbor Freeport, 94 ff. ; Toad 
and Spider, 104 ff ; Mouse and 
Snake, loS ; resuscitation, 120 f. ; 
scene in Virginia, 142 f. ; fires, 147 
f . ; rescue of John Wesley, 148 f.; 
a fire in Boston, 150 f . ; Judge 
Sewall's escape, 153 f . ; recovery 
of drowned bodies, i sS ff. ; revival 
of the drowned, 164 ff. ; Gen. Eaton 
and the Bey, 208; Militia Captain, 
212 f.; John Barnard and Master 
Cheever, 231 f. ; Sunday travelling, 
238 f. ; the Vermont Nimrod, 240 f. ; 
Sam Hyde, 241 ff. ; an Indian in 
King Philip's War, 243 f. ; marks- 
manship, 245 ff. ; hunting stories, 
24c f., 247 f. ; Washington and the 
mosquitoes, 248 f. ; English traveller 
and the Sea Serpent, 249 f. ; John 
Dunton and the mermaid, 250; 
Moon Hoaxes, 251 ff. ; inquisitive- 
ness, 268 f. ; Washington and the 
innkeeper, 270 f. ; Rochefoucault in 
New Jersey, 277 f. ; Admiral James 
and New England hospitality, 2S1 
ff . ; the moon and the brain, 307 f. ; 



Dr. Deane and Balaam, 308 f; Dr. 

Deane and Capt. Mowatt, 309; 

Barberries and Wheat, 329 ff. ; 

Indian anecdotes, 241 fT., 333 ff. 
Angels, fallen, as pagan divinities, 109. 
Angling, 64 f. 

Anglo-Saxon calendars, 66. 
Animals exhibited at inns, 277. 
Annian, Straits of, discovered by Sir 

Francis Drake, 321. 
Antidote against Atheism, by Henry 

More, III. 
Antidotes, animals seek, 104 ff. 
Apenanucsuck, Indian, 351 f. 
Apollo Press, Boston, 322. 
Apparitions, revealing murder, "jt^ i. 
Apple trees, when to plant, 313. 
Apples, keeping through winter, 309 ; 

effect of the moon on, 309 f. ; mo- 
lasses from, 129. 
Apprentices, 144. 
Arabian Nights, sold by Mr. Thomas, 

319- 

Arachne, myth of, 106 f. 

Army and navy, 208 ff. 

Army ofiicers as innkeepers, 263 f., 
266 ; Society of the Cincinnati, 263. 

Arsenic, use in plague, 117. 

Art in almanacs, etc., 62 ff. 

Artillery Election, 211 f. 

Ashes, warm, as means of resuscita- 
tion, 164. 

Ashmole, Elias, on spiders as ague 
cure, 119. 

Ass's shoe, to ward off evil spirits, 
206. 

Astrology, 39 ff., 53 ff., 305 ff. ; in 
New England, 39 ff., 305 ff. ; dis- 
cussed in Harvard theses for A. M., 
40 f. ; Man of the Signs, 53 ff. ; 
comets, 199 ff. ; in English and 
American almanacs, 43 ff., 53 ff., 
305 ff., burlesqued, 4of., 45ff., 48 ff., 
56 f. ; ridiculed, 58 ff. 

Astronomy : see Astrology ; Comets ; 
Eclipses; Sun spots. 

Atherton, Humphrey, magistrate set 
over Indians, 340. 

Auctions at inns, 278. 

Austin, Alfred, poet laureate, 193. 

Autumn : see Indian summer. 

Bachelors and maids, jocose predic- 
tions concerning, 50 fT. 
Bacon, Lord, 112. 



INDEX 



381 



Baker, E. J., on Patrick Jeffrey, 13. 

Bakers, expense of patronizing, 93?. 

Ball playing, 174. 

Ballads, 144, 161. 

Bamberg, witchcraft in, 113. 

Barbary pirates, 208 ; war of United 
States with Barbary States, 238. 

Barber, J. W., Connecticut Histori- 
cal Collections, 247, 352, 377 ; on 
Connecticut Indians, 377. 

Barberry bashes, hard to destroy, 
328 ff. ; thought to blast wheat and 
rye, 328 ff. 

Barclay, Andrew, Boston bookbinder, 

7- 

Barefoot, habit of going, 222. 

Barlaam and Joasaph, legend of, 137 f. 

Barlow, Joel, his Hasty Pudding, 
170 f.; his Columbiad, 170; on 
huskings, 170; agent of Scioto 
Company, 171 ; in French Revolu- 
tion, 171 ; at Chambery, 171. 

Barnard, Rev. John, his controversy 
with Pigot as to Christmas, 176 f . ; 
his Autobiography, 177, 231 ; his 
relations with the Church of Eng- 
land, 177 ; his school days, 231 f. 

Barnstable, Mass., salt-works at, 
135 f. ; county courts at, 333. 

Barnstable County : see Cape Cod. 

Bayberry tallow, 189. 

Bayley, Col. P'rye, 180. 

Beach, W. VV., Indian Miscellany, 377. 

Beal, Rev. John, on spiders, 119. 

Beaman, Hannah, 7. 

Bear, Polar, exhibited in Boston, 277. 

Beast of Gevaudun, 69 ff. 

Beef, when to kill, 306. 

Beer, 262. 

Belknap, Jeremy, D. D., on witch- 
craft, no; letter on fire-engines, 
152; on the Dark Day, 204 {.; on 
maple sugar, 123, 229; his tour to 
Niagara, 294 f. ; his History of 
New Hampshire, 123, 315, 320; his 
American Biography, 320. 

Belknap, Joseph, Boston printer, 322. 

Beloe, William, his account of Madam 
Hayley, 9 ff. ; Southey's opinion of 
his style, 10. 

Belpre, on the Ohio, 129. 

Bennett, Joseph, on travel in New 
England, 285 f. 

Bentley, Richard, 192. 

Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon epic, 166. 



Berkle, van, Dutch ambassador, his 

call on Hancock, 1 1 f. 
Berserk rage, 159. 
Berwick, Maine, Dwight's journey to, 

329- 

Bethlehem, Pa., Moravian female 
seminary at, 230. 

Betogkum (ISoshokum, Pottoquam), 
Indian scribe, 372 f., 374 f. 

Beverly, Mass., salt-works at, 132. 

Bevis of Hampton, romance and 
chapbook, 137. 

Biard, father, on Indians as devil- 
woishippers, 109. 

Bible, Eliot's Indian, 371. 

Bickerstaff, Isaac, pseudonym for 
Swift, 45. 

Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack, pic- 
tures in, 69. 

Bier : see Ordeal. 

Bigelow, Jacob, M. D., on Mysteries 
of Udolpho, 318 f. 

Biglow, William, on Thomas Waban 
and Indian warrant, 335 ; records 
of Natick, Mass., 346; Natick 
Indian anecdotes, 363. 

Billings, Hammatt, as illustrator of 
the Farmer's Almanack, 63. 

Billings, Josh (H. W. Shaw), Old 
Farmer's Allminax, 56 f ; burles- 
que on the Man of the Signs, 56 f. 

Bingham, Caleb, master of girls' 
schools and author of school-books, 
229 f. 

Birch, Thomas, D. D., 119, 166 f., 308. 

Black, Rev. W. G., his Folk-Medi- 
cine, 119. 

Black staff, sign of constable's office, 

342- 
Blackmore, Sir Richard, his Prince 

Arthur, 170. 
Blasting of wheat, 327 ff. ; thought to 

be effect of barberry bushes, 328 ff. 
Bleeding of corpse, 74 ff. 
Bliss, Joel W., advertisement, 269. 
Bliss, Samuel, 352. 
Bliss, W. W., 246. 
Blister bugs, i86 f. 
Blistering, 186 f. 
Blood, Indian superstition regarding, 

355- 

Bloodletting and the signs of the zo- 
diac, 53. 

Blue Mountain, 304. 

Boarding-houses, 263, 280. 



382 



INDEX 



Boarding round, of schoolmasters, 6. 
Body, dominion of the moon in man's, 

53 ff- 
Boer War, 47. 
Bogs, clearing, 311 ff- 
Bohemian folk-lore, 159. 
Bolton, C. K., 244, 247. 
Book of Knowledge, 42 f. 
Bookbinding, 7. 
Books for children, 137 ; chapbooks, 

137 ff- 

Bookselling in New England, 7 f., 
317 ff. ; country imprints, 317. 

Bordley, J- B., his Husbandry, 128; 
on watermelon sugar, 128. 

Bore, Etienne de, sugar planter, 128. 

Boshokum : see Betogkum. 

Boston, society in, 12; smallpox in, 
14; population of, 20; notions, 83 
f . ; market for provisions, S3 ff . ; 
Lechford in, 9S ; booksellers, 139; 
theatre at, 150 ; method of building 
houses, i5of. ; fire in, A. D. 1796, 
described, i5of. ; amateur firemen, 
151; Fire Department, 152; fire- 
engines in, 152; United Fire So- 
ciety, opposite 152; carrying fire 
and smoking in the streets, 155 f- ; 
taverns in, 163, 2S7 ff. ; South 
Church in, 201 ; lightning rods in, 
201 ff. ; Artillery Election, 211 f. ; 
Latin School, 231 ff . ; inns in, 163, 
276 f., 2S7 ff. ; stages, 2S8 ff. ; 292, 
293 ; stage and post roads, 299, 
303 ff. ; railroads from, 297 ff. See 
also Pemberton Hill ; Tremont St.; 
Vassall estate. 

Boston Advertiser, 300. 

Boston and Albany Kailroad, 29S ff. 

Boston and Lowell Railroad, 300 f. 

Boston and Providence Railroad, 300. 

Boston and Worcester Railroad, 300 f. 

Boston Neck, salt-works on, 133. 

Bours, Rev. Peter, of Marblehead, 
Mass., 177. 

Bow and arrow, method of carrying, 
360. 

Bowling, Mr. Thomas on, 276. 

Boxford, Mass., Ames murder at, 74. 

Boyle, Robert, 119, on death for lack 
of air, 166 ; improver of air-pump, 
307 ; on the moon and the brain, 307; 
his law of gases, 307. 

Boyle's Voyages, work of fiction, 323 f. 

Boylston, Mass., 4. 



Bradford, Gov. William, on salt manu- 
facture, 131 f. ; on Christmas, 173 f. 

Bradford Academy, 230. 

Brain, moon's effect on, 305, 307 ; the 
tides and the, 307. 

Braintree, Mass., lawyers in, 99. 

Bramhall, Bishop John, controversy 
with Hobbes, 57. 

Brand, John, on Shrovetide sports, 
178. 

Brattleboro', Vermont, 269, 317. 

Brayley, A. W., on fire-engines, 152. 

Bread, baker's, 93 f. ; made of Indian 
meal, 2S6. 

Breathing under water, 167. 

Breck, Samuel, 1 1 ; account of Madam 
Hayley, 1 1 ff. 

Brewster, Sir David, 253. 

Bricriu, Feast of, Irish saga, 355. 

Briggs, Samuel, Essays, etc., of Na- 
thaniel Ames, 58, 60. 

Brine, leaking, sign of short crops,' 
206. 

Bristles, for brush-making, 187 f. 

British Almanac, 46 f. 

Brooke, Henry, his Fool of Quality, 

319- 

Brookfield, Mass., 226. 

Brookline, Mass., stage from Boston 
to, 290. 

Brooks, Henry M., 8, 238, 276. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, on Indian 
summer, 194. 

Browne, Daniel, hexameters on the 
signs, 55 ; his almanac, 55. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, on toads and 
spiders, 107. 

Browning, The Grammarian's Fu- 
neral, title anticipated by Tompson, 

Brush-making, 188. 

Buckingham, Joseph T., on ballads 
and chapbooks, 144 ; on bristles, 
188 ; reprints Washington's di- 
ploma, 237 ; on railroads, 298 f. 

Bucktails, nickname for Democrats, 
2S0. 

Buddha, Joasaph identical with, 138. 

Buddhistic parables, 138. 

Bugs, 179, 181. 

Bulfinch, Dr. Thomas, on use of to- 
bacco smoke in resuscitation, 164. 

Bull, Frederick, tavern at Hartford, 
Conn., 123. 

Bunch of Grapes Tavern, Boston, 163. 



INDEX 



383 



Burlesque Almanacs : see Dekker, 
Poor Robin, Rabelais, Billings. 

Burlington, Vt., stage, 294.' 

Burney, Miss, her novels sold by Mr. 
Thomas, 31 8. 

Burning over the woods, Indian cus- 
tom, 195. 

Burnt Cabins, the, on the Ohio Road, 

304- 
Bushes, mowing, effect of the moon, 

306, 310 ff. ; eradicating, 328 ff. 
Bushnell, R., 351 f. 
Busybodies, sketches of, 89, 90 f. 
Bute County, N. C, tavern, 263. 
Butter, cream bewitched, 206. 
Buttonvvood bushes, 312. 
Buzzard's Bay, Mass., 246. 
Byron and Zeluco, 319. 

Cakes, Shrove Tuesday, 177 f. 

Calash, 349. 

Calendar, manuscript, 54: illustra- 
tions for, 62 ff. ; Roman farmer's, 
65 f. 78 f. ; Anglo-Saxon, 66 ; 
Athenian liturgical, 66; illumin- 
ated, 66. See Farmer's Calendar. 

Cambridge, Eng., Christ's College, 3. 

Cambridge, Mass., Indian school at, 
76 ; stage from Boston to, 290. See 
Harvard College. 

Canada, Jesuits in, 109; Indians of, 
109, 124, 160. 

Candler, Isaac, on American inquisi- 
tiveness, 26S f. ; on inns, 269. 

Candles, 189. 

Cannibalism, 355 f. 

Canonchet, capture of, 356. 

Canso, N. S., 73. 

Canterbury Tales, 61, 72. 

Cantharides, 186 f. 

Canton, Mass., stage from Boston to, 
290. 

Cape Ann, stage from Boston to, 
289. 

Cape Cod, 96; Dwight's journey to, 
129; salt manufacture on, 129 ff. ; 
Thoreau's, 135 ; lighthouse on, 163. 

Cape of Good Hope, observatory at, 
254 ff. 

Captives taken by Indians, 171, 
36Sff. 

Cards, playing, 95 f., 139. 

Carleton, Osgood, 8 f. ; his mathe- 
matical school, 8; his almanac, 8; 
his English accent, 8 f. ; invited 



to contribute to the Farmer's 

Almanack, 8. 
Carts, 285. 
Carver, Capt. John, his explorations, 

320 f. ; his escape at the massacre 

of Fort William Henry, 321. 
Castine, Maine, trial of Susup at, 

365 f- 
Cat, black, dreaming of, 206 ; cat's 

tail as weather sign, 205. 
Catalogue of books sold by R. B. 

Thomas, 318 ff. 
Cato on agriculture, compared with 

the Farmer's Calendar, 79 f. 
Cattle shows, 93. 
Caughnawaga Indians, 171. 
Ceyx and Alcyone, 196 f. 
Chabanakongkomun (Dudley, Mass.), 

340 f. 
Chairs or chaises, 286. 
Changing works, 179 ff. 
Chapbooks, 42, 137 ff. 
Chapmen and their books, 137 ff. 
Character sketches in the Almanac, 

86 ff. 
Charity inculcated, 81. 
Chaucer, 56, 61, 72, 155 f., 348, 355. 
Cheever, Ezekiel, anecdotes of, 231 

ff. ; elegy on, 232 f. 
Chemical medicine, rise of, 118. 
Chesterfield, Lord, his Letters, 31S. 
Child, Francis J., his Ballads, 161. 
Chimneys, sweeping, 146; glazing, 

148. 
Christmas, objection to the celebra- 
tion of, 173 ff. ; date of, 175 ff. 
Church, Thomas, his King Philip's 

War, 358. 
Church of England, 174, 176 f. 
Church-going, 88. 
Cider, 83 f., 172, 282, 315; selling to 

Indians, fine for, 351 f. 
Cigars, 147, 154 f., 156 f., 220 f. 
Cincinnati, Society of, motto of, 263. 
Circle of the months, figure, 66. 
Clark, James, White Lion tavern, 

Boston, 288. 
Clayton, B., translator of Israel 

Hiibner, 314. 
Clearing land, 311 ff., 328 ff. 
Clergy, 100, 108 ff., 125, 172 f., 175 ff., 

181 f., 197 f., 199 ff., 204 f., 223 f., 

230, 260, 271, 336 ff. See Ministers. 
Cleveland, John, on the Man of the 

Signs, 58. 



;84 



INDEX 



Climate. 191 ff. See also 'Weather. 

Clough, Samuel, his almanac, 5S ; on 
the Man of the Signs, 5S. 

Clytemnestra, 115. 

Coaches, private, ;S6. See Stage- 
coaches. 

Cobbett, \Vm., Treatise on Garden- 
ing, 141- 

Cock, throwing at the, 177 £. 

Coffee, consumption of, 1S4 f. ; po- 
tatoes as a substitute for, 1S4 f. 

Cogan, Dr. Thomas, on resuscitation, 
163. 

Cogswell, Dr. M. F., on Indian sum- 
mer, 191 f. 

Coins, silver, value in 1797, 37. 

Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 

-35- 

L olumbiad, epic by Joel Barlow, 170. 

Columbian Centinel, 23S, 276. 

Columbian Muse, 31S. 

Comets, 41 ; effect on weather, 191, 
19S ff. ; portentous, 19S ff. ; In- 
crease Mather on, 199 f. ; Professor 
Winthrop on, 200. 

Company of Stationers, publishers of 
almanacs, 46 f. 

Congress in 1794, 234. 

Connecticut, maple sugar in, 122 f . ; 
peddlers in, 144 f. ; schools in,227 f. ; 
Sundav laws in, 23S f. ; Indians in, 
124 ft"., 376 f. 

Connecticut Courant, 164. 

Constables, Indian, ^^;^ ff., 33S, 340 ff. 

Constitution, frigate, 215. 

Continental Congress encourages salt- 
making, 133. 

Conveyance, means of, 2S5 ff. 

Cooper, Judith (Sewall), 14. 

Corn, huskings, 16S ff. ; red ears, 
16S, 171 f. ; crows, 1S9 f. ; corn 
crop and Indian summer, 19S; uses 
of, 191 ; the word, in England and 
America, 327 f. 

Cornish, murder of, 75. 

Cornish language, 377. 

Cornstalks, molasses from, 129. 

Corpse, bleeding of, 74 ff. 

Corpse lights, 162. 

Correspondents of the Almanac, 25 ff. 

Costume, 63 ff., 222 ; Indian, 359 f. 

Cotton. Rev. John, estate on Pem- 
berton (Cotton) Hill, 14. 

Cotton, John, 349. 

Cotton, Rev. Seaborn, 14. 



Counter-irritants, 1S6 f. 

County fairs, 93. 

Courts, held at taverns, 27S; Indian, 

337 ff- 
Courts martial, 210 f. 
C overly, X., Boston printer, 7. 
Cracow, salt mine at, 134. 
Cranfield, Gov. Edward, of Xew 

Hampshire, 374 ff. 
Cream bewitched. 206. 
Crosby. Rev. C. C. P., 5. 9S. 
Crown Point, expedition to. in 1756, 4. 
Crows, means of preventing them 

from pulling up corn, 1S9 f. 
Cumberland Gazette, 1S2. 
Cure for greasy heels in horses, iSS; 

wonderful cures, 115 ft". 
Curiosity of Americans, 26S f. 
Currency, 37 ; dift'erent standards, 

38 ; tenor bill, 352 f. 
Currier, J. J., historian of Newbury, 

Mass., 262. 
Curtis, G. W., on the Pilgrim and 

Puritan Christmas, 174 f. 
Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, on the 

weather, loS. 
Cuts : see Illustrations. 

D.4CIA : see Petrus de Dacia. 

Dairy, cleanhness in, 182. 

Dark Day of 1780, 203 ff. ; of 1S19, 
205. 

Davenport, Abraham, poem by \\ hit- 
tier, 203. 

Davis, John, traveller and pedagogue, 
on ballad peddler, 142 f. ; on Fair- 
banks murder, 142 f . ; on inns and 
innkeepers, 263, 2S3 f. ; on motto 
of the Cincinnati, 263 ; on hospi- 
tality, 2S4. 

Davis, Judge John, edition of Mor- 
ton's Memorial, 327, 333 ; on wheat, 
327 ; version of Indian warrant, 
333 f. ; early life, 334. 

Davy, John, M. D., on the poison of 
the toad, 115. 

Dav, Benjamin H., founder of Xew 
York Sun, 259; on the Moon 
Hoax, 259. 

Day. Thomas, his Sandford and Mer- 
ton, 319. 

Dead languages, Thomas Paine on, 

319 i- 
Deane. Samuel, D. D., his New Eng- 
land Farmer, or Georgical Diction- 



INDEX 



385 



ary, 142, 309f. ; spinning bee at his 
house, iSi f. ; his character, 308 f. ; 
his humor, 30S f. ; on the moon's 
effect on apples, etc., 309 f. 

Dearborn, Benjamin, Directions for 
preventing Calamities by PMre, 
146 ft".; his inventions, 152 f. 

Deatli and moon, 30S. 

Debt, precepts concerning, 95. 

Decatur, Stephen, 215. 

Dedham, Mass., Sun tavern, 264 f., 
304 ; stage from Boston to, 290 ; 
Indian school at, 345. 

Dedham Historical Register, 103. 

Deer Island, Mass., Indians confined 

ill. 343 f- 3^- 

l")efoe, Daniel, his Religious Court- 
ship, sold by Mr. Thomas, 319. 

Degrees, academic : LL. D., 234 ff . ; 
A. M., 40 f-. ii6f. 

Dekker, Thomas, his Ravens Alma- 
nacke, 56 ; on the Man of the Signs, 
56. 

Delaware Indians, 353. 

Democrats, headquarters at Tam- 
many Hall in 1818, 280. 

Demonology : see Witchcraft. 

Dennis, Mass., salt manufacture at, 
129 f., 134 f. 

Denny, MaJ. Ebenezer, on Indian 
summer, 191. 

De Quincey, on Indian summer, 192. 

Derne, capture of, 238. 

Devil, worship of, loS H. 

Devoll, Capt. Jonathan, manufacturer 
of molasses from cornstalks, 129. 

De Witt, Benjamin, M. D., on Onon- 
daga salt-springs, 135. 

Dialect : see Language. 

Dickinson, John, his Farmer's Let- 
ters. 68 ; his portrait, 68. 

Dickman, Thomas, printer, 144. 

Digby. Sir Kenelm, his sympathetic 
powder, 115 ff.; on toads, 117; on 
the plague, 117 ; on magnetic treat- 
ment, 117. 

Diseases, lunar, 314. 

Dissection of a plague-stricken pa- 
tient, 1 18. 

Divoli, Hannah, captive among In- 
dians, 369. 

Divorce, Indian, 362. 

Dodd, William, D. D., his character 
and execution, 31S; his Thoughts 
in Prison, 318. 



Dogs, Mr. Thomas on, 84. 
Domestic service, 84, 270 f., 2S1, 283, 

2S6, 291. 
Dominion of the moon in man's body, 

S3ff. 

Dorchester, Mass., stage from Bos- 
ton to, 2S9; opposition to railroad, 
302. 

Drake, Sir Francis, his discoveries 
on the Pacific coast, 321. 

Drake, S. G., his Book of the Indians, 
241 ff., 35S, 368; his account of 
Sam Hyde, 241 ff. 

Draugiit horses, 286. 

Dreams, 73, 206. 

Drinking, 31 f., 168 ff., 172, 272 ff., 315. 

Drowning : recovery of bodies, 158 ff. ; 
resuscitation, 162 ff. ; Dr. Rowland 
Jackson's treatise on, 164 ff. 

Drunkard, picture of a, verses, 31 f. 

Drunkenness, Indian, 335, 350 ff. 

Dublet (Dubler), Tom, Indian, 368, 
372. 

Dudley, Gov. Joseph, and the In- 
dian, 361 f. 

Dudley, Paul, on maple sugar, 124; 
and Capt. Uring, 361. 

Dudley, Mass., Indian settlement, 
340 "f . 

Duncan, J. M., description of Tam- 
many Hall, 279 f. 

Dunton, John, his Letters from New 
England, 139, 250, 341 ; on mer- 
maids, 250. 

Durham, Conn., tavern fare, 124. 

Dwight, Elizabeth A., 319. 

Dwight, Nathaniel, his Geography, 

317- 

Dwight, Thomas, M. D., 359. 

Dwight, Timothy, D. D., President of 
Yale College, tour to Cape Cod, 
129; on salt manufacture, 129 f . ; 
on peddlers, 144 f.; on Washington 
and mosquitoes, 249; on inns, 
271 f . ; on barberries, 329 f. 

E.\GER, Lydia, 2 f. 

Earthquakes, Professor Winthrop and 
the Rev. Thomas Prince on, 200 ff. 

Eaton, Gen. William, and the Bev of 
Tunis, 208 ; encounter with tithing- 
man, 238 f. ; capture of Derne, 238. 

Eclipses portentous, 59. 

Economies, small, 184 ff. 

Economy, 85 ff., 184 ff , 223. 



386 



INDEX 



Edes, Henry II., on Washington's 
LL. D. and Professor Winthrop's, 

235- 

Education, theories of, 319 f. See 
Schools. 

Edward VII, coronation, 48. 

Eels, use in magnetic treatment, 117. 

Election sermons, 224. 

Electric light, 261. 

Electricity and earthquakes, 201 ff. 

Elegies, 232 f. 

Eliduc, Lay of, 120. 

Eliot, Abigail, her brains, 307. 

Eliot, Rev. Jared, Essays on Field- 
Husbandry, 311 ff.; on the influ- 
ence of the moon on vegetation, 
311 ff. 

Eliot, Rev. John, his mission to the 
Indians, 336 ff., 367; service in 
Waban's wigwam at Nonantum, 
335f., 345; his character of Wa- 
ban, 336 f.; his settlement of 
Natick, Mass., 336!.; his Ihdian 
Bible, 371. 

Eliot, Rev. John, the Younger, on 
education of women, 229. 

Eliot tracts, the. The Uay-Breaking, 
etc., 196, 336 ff., 345, 351. 

Emancipation, 127 f. 

Emerson, Rev. Wm., on use of to- 
bacco smoke in resuscitation, 164. 

Enestrom, G., on Petrus de Dacia, 54. 

Enfield, Conn., inn at, 264. 

England, witchcraft in, iriff. ; inns 
in, 266 ff. 

English grain, 198. 

English harvest, 198. 

English language, spread of, pre- 
dicted, 17 ; as spoken by Indians, 
333 ff. ; in America, see Language. 

Entertainment for man and beast, 
262 ff. 

Ephraim, Deacon, Natick Indian, 

363- 
Epsom salts, manufacture of, 134. 
Erra Pater, 42. 
Essex, of U. S. Navy, 215. 
Essex (Mass.) Agricultural Society, 

129. 
Essex Antiquarian, 74. 
Evans's tavern, Boston, 289. 
Exaggeration, humor of, 240 ff. 
Exeter, N. H., books published at. 

Exploration, 321. 



Fairbanks, Ebenezer, 144. 
Fairbanks, Jason, executed for 

murder, 142 ff. 
Fairs, agricultural, 93. 
Fales, Betsy, murder of, 143. 
Falmouth, Maine, 181 ; burning of, 

in 1775. 309- 

Falstaff, 193. 

Farcey, how cured, 117. 

Fares on stage lines, 296 ; wagon 
fare, 296. 

Farm hands, 85!. 

Farmer's Almanack, author and 
history of, i ff. ; character of the 
time when first issued, 17 ; pref- 
ace to the first number, 18 f. ; to 
the fiftieth number, 19 ff . ; to that 
for i9oi,23f. ; miscellaneous con- 
tributors to, 25 ff. ; correspond- 
ents, 25 ff. ; postage tables, 35 ff. ; 
table of money, 37 ; freedom from 
astrology, 39, 53 ; illustrations, 
62 ff.; anecdotes, 72 f., 104, 158 f . ; 
Farmer's Calendar, 78 fi". ; charac- 
ter sketches, 87 ff. ; circulated by 
book peddlers, 139; directions for 
preventing calamities by fire, 
146 ff. ; directions for recovering 
persons apparently dead from 
drowning, 162, 164 f.; on huskings, 
etc., 168 ff. ; on changing work, 
179 ff. ; on spinning, 182 ; on small 
economies, 184 ff. ; on crows and 
corn, iSgf. ; on Indian summer, 
191 ; on superstition, 205 f. ; on 
trainings, 209; military fines in, 
209 ff.; list of U. S. Navy in 1813, 
213 f.; on schools, 217 ff.; list of 
Congress in 1794, 234 ; on Sir 
William Herschel's discoveries in 
the moon, 251 ; on tavern-haunting, 
etc., 272 ff.; list of stages, 2S7 ff . ; 
railroads, 299, 301 ff. ; list of post 
roads, 303 ff. ; on the moon, 305 ff. ; 
on reading, 315 ff.; books adver- 
tised in, 318 ff. ; on barberry bushes, 
328 f. ; Indian warrant in, 333 ff. 
See also Agriculture; Amusements; 
Anecdotes; Farmer's Calendar; 
Poetry; Proverbs; Thomas, R. B. 
Farmer's Calendar, Wit and Wis- 
dom of, 78 ff. ; Roman, 65, 78 ff. ; 
Mr. Thomas and Cato, 79 f. 
Farmer's Castle, on the Ohio, 
129. 



INDEX 



387 



Farmer's Letters, by John Dickinson, 

68. 
Farming : see Agriculture. 
Fearing, Israel, his gun, 245. 
Feast of Bricriu, Irish saga, 355. 
Federal Galaxy, 269. 
Felt, J. B., historian of Ipswich, Mass., 

7;^ ; on means of conveyance, 285. 
Ferguson, James, his Astronomy 

studied by Mr. Thomas, 6. 
Fetch fire, to, I55f. 
Fevers and moon, 308. 
Fiction in New England, 318 £., 322 f. 
Field, Edward, on taverns, 265, 296. 
Fielding, Mrs., Pequot, 377. 
Fielding's novels, sold by Mr. 

Thomas, 318. 
Fines, for carrying fire or smoking 

in streets, 155 f.; for keeping 

Christmas, 174; for selling cider 

to Indians, 351 f.; military, 209 ff. 
Fire, precautions against, etc., I46ff. ; 

carrying, i5Sf-; laws, I55f. 
Fire companies and engines, 151 f. 
Fire-escapes, 152 f. 
Fire insurance, 28, 150. 
Fire societies, 146 ff. 
Fireplaces, 146. 
Firewood, when to cut, 306. 
Fitch, Rev. James, of Norwich, 

Conn., praying for rain, 363 f. 
Fitch, Maj. Thomas, 349. 
Flintlocks, 209. 
Flying Machine, coach, 296; Flying 

Mail, coach, 296. 
Flying stationers, 137 ff. 
Folk-lore : see Superstitions. 
Folk-medicine, 1 18 f . 
Food at inns, 279 f., 286. 
Fool's gold, fool's parsley, etc., 196. 

Footman, , 75. 

Forman : see Smith and Forman. 
Fortunatus, chapbook, 139. 
Fortune tellers, 108 f. 
Fowler, James, on the figures of the 

months, etc., 68. 
France, salt-making in, 133. 
Francis, Convers, D.D., biography 

of Judge John Davis, 334. 
Franklin, Benjamin, and Mr. 

Thomas, i f. ; on labor in America, 

180 ; lightning rods, 201 ; Auto- 
biography, 316, 320. 
Free will, controversy between 

Hobbes and Bramhall, 57. 



Freezing, death by, 167. 
Freight, rates for, 296. 
French and Indian War, 321. 
Fresh Pond, Watertown, Mass., g. 
Fruit trees, when to plant, 313. 

Gadbury, John, and his almanac, 
44, 46; poem on astrology, 314. 

Galenical medicine, controversy 
about, 1 18. 

Gambling, 95 f., 271. 

Garden sauce, 84 f. 

Gardening in Boston, 9. 

Garrett, Edmund H., on the Massa- 
chusetts seal, 360. 

Gawain and the Green Knight, 
romance of, 355. 

Gentleman's Magazine, 160, 308. 

Geography, works on, 315, 317, 320. 

German folk-lore, 1 59. 

Germans in America, 283. 

Gevaudun, Wild Beast of, 69 ff. 

Ghost stories, 73. 

Giotto, 67. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, on weasels, 120. 

Girdling trees, 311. 

Girls' schools, 229 f. 

Glade Road, Old, 304. 

Glanvil, Rev. Joseph, on witchcraft, 
III. 

Glauber's salts, manufacture of, I34f. 

Goble, Daniel, executed, 374. 

Godfrey of Bulloigne, chapbook, 139. 

God's Revenge against Murder, 72. 

Gods, Indian, 109. 

Goldi, Anna, alleged witch, 114. 

Goodale, Azubah, 4. 

Goodale, Joseph, 4. 

Gookin, Daniel, 337, 339 ff. ; as 
Indian magistrate, 340 ff. ; opinion 
of Waban, 337 ; Indian letter to, 

373- 
Goose bone as weather sign, 205. 
Goose-summer, 196. 
Goshen, Conn., 123. 
Gossip, characterized, 89, 90 f. 
Go-summer, 195. 
Gout, moxa as cure for, 187. 
Grafting and the moon, 313. 
Grafton, Mass., Indian ruler at, 342; 

Indian proprietors of, 371 f. 
Grain : see Corn ; English grain ; 

Wheat. 
Grammar schools, 226 f. 
Grammars, 230. 



388 



INDEX 



Grant, Dr. Andrew, 253 ff. 

Gray, Edward, publisher at Suffield, 
Conn., 42. 

Greasy heels, disease of horses, 188. 

Green, Samuel, printer, 371. 

Green, Dr. Samuel A., biography of 
Mr. Thomas, 15, 17; Facsimile 
Reproductions, 233 ; on history of 
Groton, Mass., 279, 345 ff. ; on 
Indian title to Groton, 345 ff. 

Green-corn feast, Indian, 377. 

Greene, Gardiner, his estate on Pem- 
berton Hill, Boston, 9 ff. 

Greene, Robert.tragedy of Alphonsus, 
120. 

Greenfield (Mass.) Gazette, 144. 

Grog, 90, 94 f., 272 ff., 2S2. See 
Rum. 

Groton, Mass., meetings of selectmen, 
278 f. ; stage from Boston to, 290 ; 
Indian title to, 345 ff. 

Groton Herald, 278. 

Ground ivy, smoked instead of to- 
bacco, 369. 

Groundsel, the herb, 188. 

Guinea voyage, horoscope for, 39. 

Gunrashit, Indian sagamore, 369. 

Guns, 209, 244 ff. 

Guy of Warwick, romance and chap- 
book, 137. 

Hair, cutting, in increase of the 
moon, 305. 

Halcyon days, 193, 196. 

Hale, Nathan, on railroads, 300. 

Hall, Capt. Basil, on railroads, 298. 

Hallet, Jeremiah, 27 f. 

Halliwell, J. O., on the Man of the 
Signs, 54. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 126. 

Hancock, John, anecdote, 11 f. 

Harriott, Lieut. John, on American 
currency, 38 ; on barberries and 
wheat, 331. 

Harris, James, Indian, 376. 

Harris, Thaddeus W., on native can- 
tharides, 187. 

narrower, John, 247. 

Hartford, Conn., Bull's tavern, 123. 

Harvard College (and University), 
5, 235 ff. ; commencement at, 9 ; 
theses for A. M., 40 f., 116 f. ; first 
degree of LL. D., 200, 234 ff. ; Pro- 
fessor Winthrop's lectures, 200 ff. ; 
Peabody Museum, 359 ff. ; Medical 



School, 359; Museum at, in eigh- 
teenth century, 308. 

Hassanamesitt, or Hassanamisco, 
(Grafton), Mass., 342, 371 f. 

Hasty Pudding, poem by Joel Barlow, 
170 f. 

Hatch, Israel, his coffee house in 
Boston, 287, 290 ; his stage line 
from Boston to Providence, 296. 

Haverhill, Mass., stage from Boston 
to, 289. 

Hawkins, John, Indian, 375 f. 

Hayley, Alderman, 10. 

Hayley, Madam Mary, 9 ff. ; her gar- 
den on Pemberton Hill, 9. 

Hayley, William, the poet, 10. 

Haymaking, haste in, 88 ; women en- 
gaged in, 182 f. 

Hazard, Ebenezer, 204. 

Head, Richard, his Canting Academy, 
96 f. 

Head, removable, belief in, 354 f. 

Heckewelder, Rev. John, anecdotes 
of Indians, 353, 362. 

Helmont, van, on Toad and Spider, 
104 f. ; his system of medicine, 
117 f. 

Hemlock, smoked instead of tobacco, 

369- . , 

Herbs, curative, planetary relations 

of, 41 ; sought by animals, 119 ff. ; 

plantain, 104 ff. ; groundsel, 188. 
Herschel, Sir John, and the Moon 

Hoax, 252 ff. 
Herschel, Sir William, on the habita- 

bility of the moon, etc., 251 f. 
Hexameters, English, on the dominion 

of the moon in man's body, 55. 
Hibernation of swallows, 167. 
High Howder: see Howder. 
High schools, 226 ff. 
Highwaymen unknown, 286. 
Hihoudi, alleged Indian warrant by, 

334- 
Hildreth, S. P., 129, 135. 
Hill, B. T., on railroads, 301. 
Hill, D., Boston grocer, 9. 
Hired man, wages of, 85 f., 180. 
Historical Magazine, 244. 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 

191. 
Hive, The, 318. 
Hoar, John, negotiates for release of 

Mrs. Rowlandson and others, 369. 
Hoaxes, astronomical, 251 ff. 



INDEX 



389 



Hobbes, Thomas, controversy with 

Bramhall on free will, 57. 
Hodgson, Adam, on respect for Wash- 
ington, 237 ; on the sea serpent, 

250 ; on innkeepers, 265 f . 
Hogkins, John, New Hampshire 

Indian, letters from, 375 f. 
Hogs, bewitching of, 206 ; when to be 

killed, 66 f., 305 ff. 
Hogs' bristles, 187 f. 
Holden, Mass., 4. 
Holidays, Cotton Mather on, 175 f., 

177 f. See also Christmas. 
Homer, Rev. Jonathan, on Waban 

and his descendants, 348. 
Homo Signorum, 53 ff. 
Hopkins, Matthew, witch-finder, 113. 
Hopkins, Rev. Samuel, on the Indian 

way of making maple sugar, 124 f. 
Hopkinton, Mass., Indian conveyance 

of, 349. 
Hornet and Peacock, naval battle, 

215. 
Horoscope for Guinea voyage, 39 f . ; 

mock horoscope, 41. 
Horse races, 278. 
Horses, cure for greasy heels, 188; 

swapping, 272 ; racing, 278; care of 

on a journey, 285. 
Hospitality, 280 ff. 
Hosts : see Inns ; Landlords. 
Hotels in America, 262 ff. 
Housatunnuk Indians, 124 ff., 377. 
How Doe Yee, Indian, 334, 350. 
How, Capt. Samuel, 4. 
Howdar, Captain, or Hihoudi, alleged 

Indian warrant by him, 333 ff. 
Howe, Major, 263. 
Howell, James, cured by Digby's 

powder, 116. 
Hubbard, Rev. William, anecdotes 

of Indians, 243 f., 356, 365. 
Hiibner, Israel, on astrology, 314. 
Hull, Hannah, 14. 
Hull, John, mintmaster, 14. 
Humane Society (English), 163. 

See also Massachusetts Humane 

Society. 
Humor, exaggeration, 240 ff. 
Humorous pieces in the Farmer's 

Almanack, 26, 50 ff., 78 ff., 100 ff., 

139 ff., 169, 179, 191, 212 ff., 219, 

237, 240 f., 247 f., 274, 333. 
Hunt, Freeman, his Anecdotes, 243. 
Hunting stories, 240 ff . 



Huskings, 168 ff. ; Admiral James on, 
168; Mr. Thomas on, 168 ff. ; Barlow 
on, 170; Ames on, 172; Mather on, 
172 f. 

Hutchinson, Francis, D.D., Essay on 
Witchcraft, 113. 

Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, History 
of Massachusetts, 316, 327 ; on 
wheat raising, 327 ; house at Mil- 
ton, Mass., 13. 

Hyde, Sam, Indian, a proverbial liar, 
240 ff. 

Hyde, Tom, Indian, 243. 

Hymn books, 318. 

Hyperbole, humor of, 240 fif. 

Ides of March, 90 f. 

Idols, 177 f. 

Ignis fatuus, 196. 

Illuminated calendars, 66. 

Illustrations in almanacs, 62 ff. See 
also Man of the Signs. 

Importation of sugar, 127; of maple 
sugar into England, 124. 

Indian Bible, 371 ; Psalter, 371. 

Indian corn : see Corn. 

Indian deeds, 344 ff., 349, 371 f. 

Indian harvest, 198. 

Indian languages, disappearance of, 
376 ff. ; remnants of, 376 f. 

Indian meal and bread, 286. 

Indian summer, 191 ff. 

Indians, liquor sold to, 75 f, 350 f. ; 
preachers, 76; jury of white men 
and, 76; schools for, 76, 345, 351, 
367 ; name for plantain, 104 ; as 
devil-worshippers, 108 ff. ; pow- 
wows, 108 ff. ; connection with 
Salem witchcraft, no; method of 
making sugar, 124 ff. ; method of 
recovering drowned bodies, 160; 
Caughnawaga, 171 ; Housatunnuk, 
12411.; custom as to red ears of 
corn, 171 f . ; relation to Indian 
summer, 193 ff. ; custom of burning 
over the woods, 195 ; fickleness, 
195 ; deceitfulness, 196, 241 ff. ; 
stupidity, 196; mythology, 197 f.; 
anecdotes of, 241 ff. ; Capt. Carver 
on, 321 ; English spoken and 
written by, 333 ff. ; self-government 
in Massachusetts, ^37 ff. ; costume, 
weapons, etc., 359 f. See also 
Hyde, Sam; Powwows; Sassamon; 
King Philip's War; Natick. 



390 



INDEX 



Inland communication, 285 ff. 

Innkeepers, social status of, 263 ff., 
269 f. 

Inns in America, 262 ff., 286; on 
roads, 304 ff. 

Inoculation for smallpox, 14 f. 

Inquisitiveness of Americans, 268 f. 

Insect pests, 179, 181, 186 f. ; insects, 
useful, 1S6 f. 

Insurance companies, 28, 150. 

Ipswich, Mass., 73 ; meteorology of, 
198; landlord at, 269 f. ; convey- 
ances, 285. 

Ireland, weasels in, 120. 

Irish epic saga, 355. 

Jackson, Mason, his Pictorial Press, 

70. 
Jackson, Dr. Rowland, on Drowning, 

164 ff. 
Jackson, William, lecture on railroads, 

297 f. 
Jacobs, Rev. Peter, on Nanibozhu's 

smoking, 197 f. 
James, Admiral Bartholomew, on 

huskings, 168; on New England 

hospitality and inns, 281 ff. 
James, Black, Indian constable, 340 f. 
Jeffrey, Patrick, 12 ff. 
Jehoshaphat, History of, chapbook, 

138. 
Jesuit Relations, 109. 
Jesuits on Indian witchcraft, 109 f. 
Jethro, Indian, 370, 374; executed, 

374. 
Jethro, Peter, Indian, 369 f. 
Jockey Club, by Charles Pigot, 

324 ff. 
John, Indian ruler, 342. 
John, One-eyed, Indian, executed, 

374- 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his Rasselas 
sold by Mr. Thomas, 319. 

Jones, Rev. Hugh, on Indian char- 
acter, 196. 

Jones, Rev. Peter, on Nanibozhu and 
Indian summer, 197. 

Josiah, Captain, Indian, 340. 

Josselyn, John, on plantain in his 
New England's Rarities, 104. 

Jouvency, Father, on Indians as 
devil-worshippers, 109. 

Jury of white men and Indians, 76. 

Justice of the Peace, Indian, 333 ff. 

Juvenal, 115. 



Kalendar of Shepherdes, 53 f, 66. 

Kendall, E. A., on salt manufacture, 
134 f. ; on turkey-shooting at inns, 
275 f. 

Kennebec River, James's tour on, 281. 

Kidder, Old, 240 f. 

Killingly, Conn., 247, 352 f. 

King Philip : see Philip. 

King Philip's War, colonists warned 
by John Sassamon, 76, 195; by 
Waban, 337 ; Talcott's campaign, 
243 ; anecdote of an Indian, 243 ; 
troubles at Middleborough, Mass., 
244 f. ; praying Indians in, 343 f. ; 
incidents of, 354 ff. 

Kingfishers and halcyon days, 196 f. 

King's inn, Boston, 277, 279, 287 ff. 

Kitchen gardens, 84 f. 

Kittell, John, 369. 

Knight, William, killed by Susup, 

365- 
Kutquen, Indian sagamore, 369. 

Labor, changing works, 179 ff. ; dear 
in America, 180; wages, 180; 
women in the hayfield, 182 f. 

Labors of the months, etc., 63 ff. 

Lake Erie, Battle of, 214. 

Lake Superior, 197; exploration of, 
321. 

Lambert, John, on stage-wagons, 294. 

Lancaster, Mass., taken by Indians, 

374- 
Land, clearing, 311 ff., 32S ff. ; sale 

of, by Indians, 357, 367 f. 
Langbourne, Maj., of Virginia, 225. 
Language, English, in America, 

dialect words,"etc., 8 f., 83 ff ., 87 ff , 

96, 140, 157, 179, 191 ff., 206, 212 f., 

219, 226, 247 f., 275, 293 f., 327 f.; 

Indian English, 333 ff. 
Languages, Thomas Paine on the 

study of, 320. See English. 
Latin schools, 226 ff. 
Lawrence, Capt. James, U. S. N., 215. 
Lawrence, brig, 214. 
Laws, fire, 155 f. ; school, 223 f., 

226 ff. ; establishing Indian courts, 

337 f- 
Lawyers, good and bad, 98 ff. 
Lay of Eliduc, 120. 
Leach, Emma, dwarf, 68. 
Leap-year, jests about, 50 ff. 
Leaves for bedding, 80. 
Lechford, Thomas, on lawyers, 98. 



INDEX 



391 



Lee, Col. Henry, Memoirs of the 
War in the Southern Department, 
sold by Mr. Thomas, 320. • 

Leflingwell, Prosper, anecdote of his 
hunting prowess, 247. 

Lejeune, father, on Indians as devil- 
worshippers, 109 f. 

Lendrum, John, History of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, 320. 

Leominster, Mass., stage line to, 2S8. 

Letters : see Postage ; Correspond- 
ents. 

Leverett, Gov. John, 372 f. 

Leverett, John, President of Harvard 
College, 349. 

Licenses for inns, etc., 262. 

Lighthouses, 163. 

Lightning rods, 201 ff. 

Lilly, William, astrologer, 42. 

Linkboys, in London, 96. 

Liquor sold to Indians, 75 f., 350 f. 
See Rum. 

Litchfield County, Conn., Indians in, 
376 f. 

Literature, 315 ff. 

Little Belt, of U. S. Navy, 215. 

Littlefield, George E., on schools and 
school-books, 230. 

Locke, Richard Adams, author of the 
Moon Hoax, 259. 

Locomotives, early, in New England, 
300. 

Long Island, 329. 

Loo, game at cards, 95 f. 

Loring, Ensign, of Groton, Mass., 347. 

Lorraine, witchcraft in, 113 f. 

Lossing, Benson J., on the Scaticook 
Indians, 376 f. 

Lotteries, 90. 

Louisiana, sugar culture in, 128. 

Lovelace, Richard, poem on Toad and 
Spider, 105 ff. 

Lowell, Mass., railroad from Boston 
to, 300 f. 

Lunacy and moon, 305. 

Lying, humors of, 240 ff. 

Maanexit, 341. 

M'Caulay, Catherine, portrait of, 69. 

Macedonian, man-of-war, 215. 

M'Murtry, John, 244. 

M'Robert, Patrick, on American in- 

quisitiveness, 268 ; on sleighing, 

297. 
Madeira wine, 286. 



Magistrates, innkeepers as, 279 ; In- 
dian, 337 ff. 

Magnalia, Cotton Mather's, 75 f., loS, 
no, 307. 

Magnetism in medicine, 117; dis- 
cussed in Harvard theses for A. M., 
117. 

Magunkaquog (Hopkinton), Mass., 
sale of, by Indians, 349. 

Mahwee (Mawehu), Eunice, 376 f. ; 
Gideon, 376. 

Maidenhead, N. J., inn at, 277 f. 

Mail-stages, 287 ff. 

Maine, Indians in, 365 f. 

Malcolm (Malcom), Rev. Alexander, 
of Marblehead, Mass., 177. 

Maiden, Mass., 328. 

Maliompe, Indian, executed, 374. 

Man of the Signs, 53 ff. 

Man-bats in the moon, 256, 258. 

Manilius on the signs of the zodiac, 

55- 

Manitou of Indians, 109. 

Manners of landlords, 265 ff. 

Map of New England, 299 ; showing 
railroads, 302. 

Maple sugar, 121 ff. ; manufacture 
recommended by Mr. Thomas, 121 
f . ; Stiles on, 122 f . ; Belknap on, 
123; Rochefoucault on, 123; Wan- 
sey on, 123 f. ; manufactured by the 
Indians, 124 ff. ; Dr. Rush on, 
126 f. 

Marblehead, Mass., controversy as to 
Christmas between Barnard and 
Pigot, 176 f . ; Church of England 
at, 176 f. ; stage from Boston to, 
289. 

Marie de France, Eliduc, 120. 

Marksmanship, 245 fif. 

Marlborough, Mass., 329 f. 

Marriage, Indian ceremony of, 171 f. ; 
Indian idea of, 362. 

Martha's Vineyard, Mass., 333. 

Martin, G. H., on schools, 227. 

Martineau, Harriet, on New England 
schools, 216 f. ; on the Moon Hoax 
and New England education, 260 
f. ; on railroads, 301. 

Mary, the Virgin, honors paid to, 177. 

Mason, George C, on slave-trade, 

39 f- 
Mason, Capt. John, Proprietor of 

New Hampshire, 374, 
Mason, Jonathan, 14. 



39^ 



INDEX 



Mason. Robert, daimant to the pro- 
prietorship of New Hampshire. 

3:4- 3:<^ . . I 

Massachusetts, tire insurance in, i ^o ; ' 

schools and school laws. 2:13 ft. : ] 

charter. 339; Indian, picture of. 

359 f. : se.U and coat of arms, 360. | 
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, 

33^ ' j 

Massachusetts Bay Colony, salt m.\n- ] 
ufacture. 13; f. ; Indian warrant, I 
333 tt. ; man.Agement of Indians, 
337 ft". ; seal of. 360. 

Massachusetts Bay Company, salt- 
making, 132; founders of, 33S f. ; 
charter of. 330 ; seal of. 360. 

Massachusetts Charitable Fire So- 
ciety, 146 ff. 

Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic 
Association. 297. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 
models of Dearborns inventions 
deposited with, 133; Proceedings 
and Collections, _Auj?i»f. 

Massachusetts Humane Society, 
16.: t¥. 

Massachusetts Magazine, 167, 36S. 

Massachusetts Mercury, 27a 

Massasoit, 35S. 

Mather. Cotton, on bleeding of corpse, ' 
75 f. ; on Indians .as devil-worship- 
pers. loS ff. ; letter from John 
Winthrop, F. R. S., to. 116; on 
huskings. 17- f . ; on Christmas. 
173, 175 f . : on Shrovetide festivi- 
ties. 173. 177 f. ; on Tuisco, 177 f. . 
on neglect of schools. 2Z^: on brain 
and the tides. 307 ; his Magnalia. 
75 f.. loS, 1 10, 307 : his Advice from 
the Watch Tower, 17^ f., 175 lY., 2;4. 

Mather. Incre.ise, on the ordeal of 
the bier, 76 ; on Indian untrust- 
worthiness. 105 : on comets, 199 
ff . ; on praying for rain, 304 ; on 
Feter Jethro. 370. 

Matthews. Albert, on Indian summer, 
191 ff . ; on Washington's LL. D,, 

-3r- 

M.atthews. Daniel. 2^6. 

Mattoonus. Indi.in constable, 34c. 

Mawehu : see Mahwee. 

May training, roS ff. 

Medford, Mass., stage from Boston 

to, ;So. 
Medical Repository, 192. 



Medicine and astrology. 41. 61 : and 
the signs of the zodiac, 53 It". ; 
quackery, 100 f. ; sympathetic med- 
icine, 1 1 5 ff. 

Medicine men, Indian, loS d". See 
Powwows. 

Melish, John, on stagecoaches, 292, 

Mendez. Antonio, manufacturer of 
sugar in Louisiana, 12S. 

Meriam, R. X.. on early schools. 231. 

Merlinus Liberatus, Partridge's al- 
manac. 43 f. 

Mermaids, 250. 

Merrimac River. 37 >. 

Meteorology-, 191 5.. loS. See also 
Weather. 

Metropolitan Water Works. i6. 

Middleborough. M.iss.. 76. 

Military duty, 20S ff. ; tines, 209 ff. 

Militia, 20S ff. ; captain, humorous 
anecdote, 212 f. 

Mill, J.imes, 216. 

Millers, dishonesty of. loi f. 

Milton. John, 109, 115, 34S. 

Milton, Mass., Hutchinson house at, 
13 ; stage frt>m Boston to, 2S9- 

Ministers, Indian, 340 d". See also 
Sennons. 

Modem languages, study of, 319 f. 

Mohawks, 3" 5. 

Mohegan. Conn., Indians there, 377. 

Mohegans. 243 f. 

Molasses, 123; from maple sap. 125; 
from apples, 129; from cornstalks, 
129. 

Mommsen. Theodor, 79- 

Money. different kinds in circulation. 
37 ; table of. 37 ; standaids in differ- 
ent States, 3J>. 

Monopolies, 132. 

Months, tigures for the. 62 ff. 

Moon and tides. 2S ; intluence on 
man's body. 53 ff. : new miK>n seen 
over left shoulder, 206; intluence of 
moon on vegetation, etc.. 305 fit". 

Moon Ho.\x. 251 ff. 

Moon-cursers. 05 ff. 

Moon's Man. 53 ff. 

Moore, Francis, his almanac. 46 f. 

Moore. Dr. John, father of Sir John, 
310 ; his Zeluco, 310 : Byron on, 319. 

Moose, exhibited in Boston, 277. 

Mor.avian brethren, female seminary 
of, at Bethlehem, Pa., 23a 



INDEX 



393 



More, Henry, D. D., on witchcraft, 

HI. 

Morison, Fvnes, on English inns, 

:66 ft". 
Morse. Jedediah, P. D.. his school at 

Xew H.iven. 230 ; his geographies, 

315,317,320. 
Morse, Jonathan, town clerk of 

Groton, .Mass., 347. 
Morse. Lucy (Eager), 3. 
Morton, Nathaniel, New England's 

Memorial, 3^:7, 333 ; on wheat crop 

in seventeenth century, 327. 
Mosely, Capt. Samuel, in King 

Philip's War, 354. 
Mosquitoes, Washington on, 24S f. : 

method of destroying, 240. 
Mountain Piper, chapbook, 137. 
Mouse and snake, tight between, 108. 
Mowatt, Capt. Henry, burns Port- 
land. Me., 309. 
Mowing bushes, time for, 306. 311 ff. 
Moxa, cure for gout, 1S7. 
Munchausen stories, 240 ff. 
Munson, Caleb, 164. 
Murder, in literature, 71 ; detection of, 

71 ff . ; Chaucer on, 72: famous 

murders in New England. 72 ff. ; 

disclosed by apparition, 73 f. ; 

bleeding of corpse (the ordeal of 

the bier), 74 ff. 
Muscovado sugar, 123. 
Museo Rorbonico, 78. 
Music, 179. 

Muskingum River, route to, 304. 
Muttamakoog, Jacob. Indian, 373. 
Muttamuck, Indian. 372. 
Mvth of Arachne, 106 f. ; of Nani- 

bozhu, 197 f. 

N.\CHSOMMER. 104. 

Nahant. Mass.. sea serpent. 249 f. 

Nails, parings of, in medicine, 1 17. 

Name, m.igic of the. 159. 

Nanibozhu. 197 f. 

Nanuntenoo (Canonchet). anecdote 
of. 356. 

Naples Museum, Latin farmer's cal- 
endar in, 7S. 

Narragansetts, 243. 

Natick, Mass., founded by John 
Eliot, 336 ; early government of, 
337 ff. : records of, 346 f. 

Natick Indians, 335 fif. ; conversion 
of, 335 ff. ; town records, 346 ff. ; 



specimen of their language. 346 ; 

committee for sale of laud, 340; on 

Deer Island, 3(.VS. 
Natick language, 346, 357. 
Navy, \J. S., in War ot 1S12, 213 ft'. 
Negro servants, S4. 2S0. 291. 
Nehemiah, Isaac, Indian, suicide of, 

349 f- 

Nepanet, Indian, 36S. 

Nepennomp, Tom, Indian, 371. 

Neptune. John. Indian, ot Maine, 365 ; 
speech by, 306. 

New Bedford, ^L^ss., st.ige from 
lioston to, 2S9 ; books published 
at. 317. 

Newbery. Perks. 160. 

Newbury, Mass.. fined for not main- 
taining an ordinary, 262. 

Newburyport, Mass., stage from Bos- 
ton to, 2S9 ; books published at, 

3'7- 

New England Almanack. 5s, 60. 

New England Chronicle. 237. 

New England Journal, 73. 

New-England's Crisis, poem by Ben- 
jamin Tompson, 356 ff. 

New Hampshire Historical Society, 

New Hampshire Indians, 374 ff. 

New Jersev, 277 f. 

New York, boarding house in, 263 ; 
Tammany Hall, a hotel, 279 f. ; 
stage lines from Boston to, 2S7 f. 

New York Constellation, 212. 

New York Evening Post. 249. 

New York Sun. 62 : founded by B. 
H. Day. 250; fiftieth anniversary 
of, 259; the Moon Hoax, 252 ff. 

New Zealanders, picture of, in Bicker- 
staff s almanac, 617. 

Newspapers, 8 f., 62, 70, 73, S7, 164, 
212. 222, 235. 237. 23S. 249 f., 252 ff., 
276 f.. 206 f.. 300. 

Newton, Alass., 34S ; railroad from 
Boston to, -^00 ; Eliot Terrace, 

336- 
Niagara, journey from Boston to, in 

1706. 294 f. 
Niagara, brig. 214. 
Nipmuck Indians, 341 f. 
Nonantum, Mass., Eliot's sermon to 

the Indians at, 335 f. 
Norcross, O., correspondent of the 

Almanac, 27 f. 
Norfolk. Conn., maple sugar in, 122. 



594 



IXDFX 



Xorkovc. Toban, norder o£. rr > bteed- 

iag o* cocpse. rr- 
Xc>imMBptc«uM«ss^s«ageco«ciL29!> '' 
Xorrfi*«st Passa^ 531, 

Xo«s and Qweries. 100 f. 
Xursenr riixiBaeSs 43. 

Osscovr (CRficbo). 1ou$« ladaa. 

Ottscov. Joremcih, laotuu 33* f- 
Obio RiT«r, road froai die Adantk 

OM CoIcot': see PlnkowA CoImt. 
CM Cokwy M^MoraX :^^. 
Old Sowli CJMnrIk Bostco. set. 
OideaV- -rrttaurr of tbe 

Rot- 
OidiD* , :-^ ,. . .-..>-is It. 565 1. 
OKtw, i^auuet. 5<a 
OKTor. TVoMos. 340. 
OEMtdai Iwfi»B& misstoo ivx .194. 
OMMMlaga, X, Y« salt $pnjEig& 135. 
Ckeet B».y. M«s&, 5J4- 
Onuas^Mtang, pktttre d. 6a 
Otcnt^ Samuel. 00 CocBecticct 

Ocdeal of the bier. 74 tf . 
OnfijMunr. re\5uare\i by U«. icc. 
Cteboroe, Ku:h, 114- ' 
Ods. CoL laiaesk 3^i4- 
Ovtd. icc\ igp. 3i5. 

Pacific cwsst. Drake on. 5^1 : 
CarrerV i^\rt to reach, ut. 

Packets. 205 1\ 

P»^. Tchar ur, 

Pahciksega. lc»isx:t. j^j-. 

Pitae. Robert Treat, tr^ his cd<e3k 
«49' 

Patae. TltCMna^ 140; hs A« o< 
Reason. 519 t, ; on the stucx ot 
Umjuages and scierce. 310 1. 

PakiciKvg. iH- 

Pikaskcsi^. tncian. ^j^-i. 

PiLitiaaie. folk-lore o* the. 15a 

Pallas and Arachne. ic6t\ 

Paliajstn-. 4i, 

Pancike Tuesdir. 175L 

Paanjers. ^$5, 

Pantagrtteliue Ptognosxkatkn. Rabe- 



Parker. 
Far~s, 






r.v 



.?eper. 5C4- 



PatttK^. 

43ff r >- 
Pwag: - 

Pub 

Patt«soc s tiTTf.- 

INeabcKiT. Rev. t c . ^ : 

iVM» 3|6>- 
Kabo^ M«sew»: see Hamrd 

Uaiv«isitT. 
I^afco^ani Hone*. sea %bt.si>. 
Peddlns. I>«%bt <mw 144!; of 

K>oks. 13.- n- 
Peittberto* HiU aad ^atbettoft 

Square. Bqsh«> % 14. 
^■■aybunit, bM^»» 5«a 
I^uKSTtvaua, G«»HaI Assembir, 

pabli^MS essar oa sali-aaakiag, 

PeHKSvtvaMa ETean^ IVet. 24c. 
Peaa^rtvania Ma^axiae. 155. 
i^aasYiraaja RomL old. ?:k|. 

Hner. Siorev. oo Anes aeuwdter 
aad otdeal ot tiw bier. *4. 

Pennr. Mkbad. Bostoa booksetter. 
bis inTeatofT. 1319. 

PwTT. Cowwtodore O. H.. 514; 
PertT's Vktorr. 214. 

Perrv s SpeHias ^"wk, 7. 

IVtavit (FttabaakK ladoua ntler, 

Petras de Pacta, astroaoiet;. 54. 
Pettifog^rs. 9S ff. 
l^helps. V. afX. Joba. 4. 
P&JIadeli>hiJ. pjtohfcts for SN^^ar- 

makio^. lios; sta^ Ime to Pitt*- 

bur^. >». 
PhJKp. Kiu^. lodsan sacbem. ^ j^jj". 

343 U 3.^3 : Mre- Rowiaisd!*.>tt"s we 

tefrjew »ith. 1 55. jj-v ; s^>eecb of. 

35~ t. ; vvrtrait'ot? ^5$ t. ; dcva- 

toeKts ot. 30;- f. Sfe Kia^ PbiKp s 

War. 
Phuoisopbkal Ttansactvo* : see 

Roxal SocietT. 



INDEX 



395 



Ptijsiduts, q«>du loot. Se« also 

PiiuMifotteSs i^Ck 

Pidnrii^ TtaetoUij, on s««ei<*i^^ 

■mIkss«6» (29. 
Pktwre of « Drankud, tcis«s> ^. 
P^ot, Ch«tles, his Jodcey Oub, 

Pijot, RcT. G^oije, controvtrsT 
>Hiih BuTutrd a$" to Chrii^muii, 
176 f. 

P^Ss bevtujuas of, aa6; wkoi to be 
kUkd,66f.,305C 

Pippin, Link King, diapbook, 157. 

ntoiin, Jotm, CnvuMd Tiub, 77. 

Ptn^ve, ir7ff.; in London, iiSf.; 
^ssection of « pesdlmtial body, 
iiS; toad »s c«i« for, tiS; pQ<>- 
tOMkd by comet, aoa 

nuttain, coniJxY^ 104 ff. ; vinoes ^ 
known to toad, 104 &; not native 
to Aneiica, 104, Iwjtiui nune, \ 

Ptantii^, time of moon for, 306, 309. 

Phats, as tr o l ogiaJ tioK to j^Mwer, 
314; plsBtam. I04ff.: cToand$d, I 
iSS. 

Pterins cardss 95 f^ 139. 

nrikontib, XIjis^. tml ot Indians j 
)br mnrder, 76: Ckristaus at, in I 
i6si, 173^; stage fma Boston > 
to.«SSf. I 

Pl^fMKMirii CohMiT, sah wanniKtnre, 
131 f. : iratfitran of Indan wai^ 
rant, ^35 ^~ < Indian coi^tables in, 
> ; letter frwa Sji^ Plal^ to 
Pri*oe,3^7, I 

POeiiT. 3a, 51 f, 55, jS, 60. 72. t^ef- 
140. t6i, ijof, ae^ aov '35, -3-, 
^I^: contnnMted to the Almjuuc 
aSfi. 

IVtets, Eaglbh, tend in Xev £:)§- 

l»d.3«S^ I 

INocson : see Vcnoi I 

Fo fe on i ng in Rone, 115. | 

PdbMimchcnfkin, 114. ; 

Folar bear, eriiibited in Bostoa, S77.i 
INiliCicians^ c o itr ? , advice to, 237. 
Pottard\ Tarcra, bostoik 277. 
Powl, Edward, Us ahaanac, <S ; on 

the Man of the S^k. jB. 
Fonnakpnban, Infia%373. 
^iior Rolu^ AlawMC, bwtksqoe 



on astrdofy, 40, 49; tnodc horo- 
scope, 40 f.; HMxJc ^it^hecies, 49 ; 
on the Man c^' the Sigi«i, 5S 

Poor ^V»11^5 AlnvanAC, 59. 

I\>puiatton ot cities, ad. 

Pwk. ^ect of the tnoon on, 30^ ff. 

Potter, Harid, commander of the 
Esssejt in the War t-rf iSjc, 215, 

PuNrtjanvi. Me,, spinning bee at, ISi £ ; 
price of provisions in 1791, aSi ; 
bttming of, in 177 v 3^^ 

Portrait of R. R Thomas;, 16; of 
Kii^ PhiKp. 35S f- 

Portsmouih, N. H., stage line to, 

I>»$tase in America, rates of, at dif- 
feT«Bt tines, 33 ff. 

Potato coffee, 1^ f. ; tK>ato tlies, 
iS6f. 

Pottoqnam (Boto^wn, l>oshokum>, 
Simon, Indian scribe^ 3~;: t.. 374 t. 

PownalbMOv^h. Me,, tavern at^ iS> 

IVjwwows or Indian wiiArdss loS ff., 
33^3413631. 

Prayn^ Indians, 356 ff. 

Plt»ch«^ canting, icc; preachers 
and schools^ .:.:3 f. ; Indian. 340 ff. 
See also Sermons. 

Prediciions in Tanridge'^ almanac, 
4 ^ t. : Swift V, under the name of 
Kckersraff, 45 ; Zadkiers and 
RaphaeJ's, with tultilmentSs 47 f. ; 
burlesque, 4S f.. 5c ff. ; Wood- 
ward's cjiution about, 40 f. 

Present State of Xew-England. 354 f. 

Presideni, frigate, ri5. 

Prices of almanacs. 46 ; ctf provisions, 
aSi f. See aiso Fares ; Inns ; 
Labor. 

Priest. WilBam, description of a are 
in Boston, 1796, 150; coi American 
marksmen, ^6. 

Priming wire, >xi 

Prince, Protessor J- DrneJer. on New^ 
England Ii>dian langnagi^ 376 f. 

Prince, Gov. Tliomas, letter from 
Kins Philm^ 367, 

Piince, Rer. Thomass on eaidiqwakcs 
and %htnin$ rods, aoi f . 

Printer. .Ami. 3~r ; .\mi, Jr., 37a. 

Printer, JameSs Indian. 371 ; aj^ien- 
ticed tl-« Samoel Green, 371 ; )oias 
the enemv, 371 ; assists £Bot in 
Indian 6ib^ 371 ; printo- of In- 
dian Psalter, 371 ; wriKs a letter 



396 



INDEX 



for Indians, 371; his descendants, 

371 f- 
Printer, Moses, 372. 
Printers, 7, 144, 317, 322, 371. 
Privateers, 3. 

Probate courts at taverns, 278. 
Proctor, R. A., on the Moon Hoax, 

259. 
Progress in America, 17, 19 ff. 
Prophecies : see Predictions. 
Proverbs, 83, 87, 88, 99, 100, 121, 122, 

155. 179. 195. 222, 241, 266, 275, 

276. 
Providence, R. I., stage from Boston 

to, 2S7 f., 296; railroad, 300. 
Providences, special, 200 ff. 
Pruning, 313. 
Psalter, Indian, 371. 
Ptolemy, the astronomer, 55. 
Public business transacted at inns, 

278 f. 
Pumkamun, Indian, 373. 
Pump-engine, Dearborn's, 152. 
Putnam, Professor F. W., reconstruc- 
tion of a Massachusetts Indian, 

359 f- 
Putnam, Rufus, his early education, 

225 f. 
Pynson, John, 53. 

Quacks, 100 f. 

Quanohit, Indian sagamore, 369. 

Quarll, Philip, adventures of, 322 f. 

Quebec, road to, 304. 

Queen of Heaven, 177. 

Quincy, Josiah, on railroads, 302. 

Quincy,.Mass., stage from Boston to, 
290 ; railroad from quarry to tide- 
water, 297. 

Rabelais, Pantagrueline Prognosti- 
cation, 48. 

Racing, 27S. 

Radcliffe, Mrs. Ann, her books sold 
by Mr. Thomas, 318 f. 

Railroads in New England, 297 ff. ; 
early agitation for, 297 f. ; opposi- 
tion to, 298 f., 302 ; experiments, 
297 f. ; establishment of, 300; map 
of, 302 ; table of, in 1844, 303 ; 
coaches and cars, 301. 

Rain, praying for, 363 ff. 

Ramsay, David, M. D., History of the 
American Revolution, 315. 

Raphael's almanac, astrological, 47. 



Rasselas, sold by Mr. Thomas, 319. 

Rats, letter to, 206. 

Ravens Almanacke, by Dekker, 56; 
Man of the Signs in, 56. 

Rawson, Rev. Grindal, on neglect of 
schools, 224. 

Reading, books recommended for, 
315 ff. ; books sold by R. B.Thomas, 
318 flf. 

Receipts, 184 f., 188 f., 249. 

Red ears of corn, at huskings, 168 ; 
supposed Indian symbolism re- 
garding, 171 f. 

Religious Courtship, Defoe's, 319. 

Remedies: see Cures; Gout; Greasy 
heels. 

Remy (Remigius), Nicholas, judge in 
witchcraft cases in Lorraine, 113; 
his Daemonolatreia, 113. 

Rendon, intendant of Louisiana, 128. 

Reprints, American, of standard liter- 
ature, etc., 317, 322. 

Respiration, artificial, 162 f . ; under 
water, 167. 

Revere, Paul, portrait of King Philip, 

Revolutionary War, scarcity of im- 
ported articles during, 126 ; scarcity 
of salt during, 133 f. ; Rufus Put- 
nam in the, 225; Washington in 
the, 235 ff . ; foreign visitors after 
the, 262 f. ; officers in the, as inn- 
keepers, 263 f. ; the Cincinnati, 
263 ; Ramsay's History of the, rec- 
ommended by Mr. Thomas, 315 ; 
Col. Lee's Memoirs, 320 ; Col. 
Tarleton, 325 f. 

Rhode Island, duel between toad and 
spider in, 104. 

Ricketson, Shadrach, M. D., on In- 
dian summer, 192. 

Riddles, 27 ff. 

Riding horseback, 285 f. 

Ring finger, 77. 

Rise, Columbia, song by R. T. Paine, 

.'49; 
Rittel's tavern, Pownalborough, 

Maine, 283. 
River travel, 304. 
Roads, 285 ff. ; table of, 303 ff. 
Robbers unknown, 286. 
Robie, Thomas, his almanac, 60. 
Robin, Indian ruler, 342. 
Robinson Crusoe, 137, 319. 
Rochefoucault-Liancourt, due de la, 



INDEX 



397 



on maple sugar, 123 ; on Connecti- [ 

cut schools, 227 f. ; at an inn, 277 f. | 
Rockwell, Solomon, on warm ashes j 

in resuscitation of drowned, 164 f. 
Romances, 137, 31S f. 
Rome, farmer's calendar at, 78 f. ; 

secret name of, 159 ; destruction of, 

200 ; Roman agriculture. So. 
Roskoff, Gustav, Geschichte des Teu- 

fels, 114. 
Rowlandson, Mrs. Mary, captivity 

among Indians, narrative, 368 ff. ; ! 

interview with King Philip, 155, I 

370 ; habit of smoking, 369 f. 
Roxbury, Mass., stage from Boston 

to, 290. 
Royal Society, it 5, 124, 132, 166 f., 

252,307-. 
Rubeta, poisonous toad, 115. I 

Ruggles, Col. Timothy, commanding 

Worcester County Regiment in 

1757, 4- 
Rulers, Indian, 337 ff. 
Rum, 125, 272 ff., 2S6. 315; made of 

maple sap, 125. See Grog. 
Rumor, characterized, 87, 90 f. 
Rush, Benjamin, M. D., on maple 

sugar, 126 ff. ; on slavery, 127 ; on 

the Pennsylvania climate, 195. I 

Ryall Side, Beverly, Mass., salt-works [ 

at, 132. I 

Rye, effect of barberry bushes on. 

329- 

S.A.DDLE horses, 285 f. 

Saddlebags, 2S5. 

Sadducismus Triumphatus, by Glan- 
vil, III. 

Sadler, Capt. John, 225 f. 

Sailors' superstitions, 40. 

St. Albans, Vt.. stage, 294. 

St. Anthony, Falls of, reached by 
John Carver, 321. 

St. James's Chronicle, 70. 

St. Josaphat, 138. 

St. Luke's Summer, 194. 

St. Martin's summer, 192 f. 

Salem, Mass., witchcraft, no ff. ; 
stage from Boston to, 2S9 f . ; books 
published at, 317. 

Salt, manufacture of, 129 ff ; scarc- 
ity of, in Revolution, 134; from 
Onondaga springs, 135; used to 
extinguish fire in chimneys, 148 ; 
in glazing chimneys, 148. 



Sara Sachem, 369, 372 ff. ; executed, 

374- 
Sampson, Indian teacher, 341. 
Sampson, Indian, Philip's agent, 36S. 
Sandford and Merton, by Thomas 

Day, 319. 
Sap: see Maple Sugar. 
Sassamon, John, King Philip's sec- 

retarj-, 195, 367; reports intended 

hostilities, 76, 195; murder of, 76; 

letter ascribed to, 367 f . 
Savannah, Ga., road to, 304. 
Scaticook or Skaghticoke Indians, 

376 f. 
Schenectady, N. Y., 269. 
School-books, 230. 
Schools and schoolmasters, 6, 216 ff. , 

boarding round, 6 ; Indian, 76, 345, 

Science, study of, Thomas Paine on, 

319 f- 

Scions and the moon, 313. 

Scioto Company, 171. 

Scolding, 91. 

Scoring up charges, 82. 

Scotland, witchcraft in, 113. 

Scribner's Monthly, 376. 

Sea serpent, off Nahant, Mass., 249 f. 

Seal of Massachusetts, 360. 

Seals, mystery of, 314. 

Sears, Capt. John, salt-maker, 134. 

Sears, Richard, salt-maker, 134. 

Seasons, labors of the, etc., 63 ff. 

Seby. Sarah, 348. 

Seccombe, Thomas, 113. 

Sedgwick, Theodore, his Hints to my 
Countr\'men, 142. 

Segars : see Cigars, 

Selectmen meet at taverns, 278 f. 

Sermons, 17, no, 172 f., 175 ff., 199, 
201 ff., 204, 211, 222, 223 f.. 319, 
336; burlesque, in favor of thieves, 
26. 

Service, domestic, 84, 270 f., 281, 283, 
286, 291. 

Seven Sages, 138 f. 

Seven Wise Masters, 137 ff. 

Sewall, Hannah (Hull), 14. 

Sewall, Joseph, 175. 

Sewall, Judith, 14. 

Sewall, Samuel, his estate on Pem- 
berton Hill, 14 ; his salt-works at 
Boston Xeck, 133; his house on 
fire, i53f-; his opinion of Christ- 
mas, 175 ; negotiations for purchase 



598 



INDEX 



of llopkiiUon, Mass., 34S f . ; on 
suicide of an Indian, 349 f. ; on 
execution of Sagamore Sam, 374. 
Shakspere, 59, 107, 115, 143, 193-274. 

305- 

Shaw. II. W.: see Hillings. Josh. 

Shepard, Kev. Thomas, 337 f. 

Shingles. 150. 

Shoe, ass's, 206. 

Shoemaker loo, 95 f. 

Shoes, making, 93 ; old. used to scare 
crows, 189 f. ; going without, 222. 

Shoshanim : see Sam Sachem. 

Shown\on, innkeepers as, 276 f. 

Shrewslniry, Mass., 4 ; Slirewsbury 
leg. 4 f. 

Shrove Tuesday cakes and sports, 
177 ff. ; Tuisco, 177 ff . ; pancakes, 
177 f. ; throwing at the cock, 177 f. ; 
Mather on, 177 ff. 

Sign of tavern, 264 f. 

Signs of zodiac, 79 ; the Anatomy and, 
53 a. ; figures of. 62 fl". ; connec- 
tion with vegetation, 306, 311 H. 

Simms, Jeptha K., anecdote of Gen. 
Eaton." 23S f. 

Simonds. 240 f. 

Skating. 63 f. 

Skylark. The, songbook. 318. 

Slander, So, 90 f. 

Slave-trade in New England, 39; as- 
trology in, 39 f. 

Slavery. 121 f., 127 f. 

Sleighs and sleigh-riding, 207. 

Sm.dlpox in Hoston, 1792, 14; inocu- 
lation for. 1 1;. 

Smith, Charlotte, her novels, 319. 

Smith, Col. James, his captivity 
among the Indians, 171. 

Smith, C. C, on scarcity of salt in the 
Revolutionary War. 134. 

Smith and Forman's Almanac, (u. 

Smoking. S8, 90. 14:", 154 ff.. 220 f . ; 
by women and children, 147, 155, 
360 f. : in the streets, 155 f.; of 
Xanibozhu, 197 f . : Indian substi- 
tutes for tobacco. 369. 

Smollett's novels. 318. 

Smut in wheat, 3011. 

Smuttv eai^ of corn, at huskings. 
- i6o f. 

Smyth. J. F. 1\, on Gen. Jethro Sum- 
ner and other innkeepers, 263 f. 

Snake and mouse, fight between, loS ; 
cut in pieces, joins again, 120: 



striped, useful in gardens, 119; In- 
dian god in form of, loS ; resuscita- 
tion of fiozen, 107. 

Snow, soap made of, iSS f. : clearing 
railway tracks of, 301. 

Soap made of snow, iSS f. 

Society for the Diffusion of Christian 
Knowledge, 46. 

Society for Propagating Christian 
Knowledge, 294. 

Society for Propagating the Gospel, 

154- 

Soldan, \V. G. , Geschichte der Hex- 
enprozesse, 1 14. 

Solomon, Indian ruler. 342. 

Sommer, 11. Oskar, 54. 

Songbooks, 31S. 

Sorcery : see Witchcraft. 

South African War, 47. 

Southborough, Mass., 330. 

Southey, Robert, on Beloe, 10; his 
Madoc, 170. 

Sowing, signiticance of the moon for, 
300. 

Spain, witchcraft in. 114. 

Spalding, Jacob, adventure with In- 
dians. 352 f. 

Spanish Hies, substitute for. 1S6 f. 

Speck. Frank G.. on New England 
Indian languages, 376 f. 

Speen. James, Indian minister, 342. 

Spencer. Mass., 5. 

Spider, duel with toad. 104 tf. ; venom 
of. 104 ff.. 119; remedy for ague, 
119. 

Spinning. iSi f. ; bees, tSi f. 

Spofford's American Magazine. 1S9. 

Spc>rts : see Amusements. 

Sprague, H. H., 149 f.. 153. 

Sprague. P.. on liarbcrry bushes. 32S f. 

Squaring accounts. 316. 

Stiifford. of Tiverton, a conjuror, 40. 

Stagecoaches. 279 ; st,age Hnes. 2S5 
ff. : list of. 2S7 ti. ; coaches de- 
scribed. 291 G. 

Stage routes. 28,^ tY. 

Stage-wagons. 203 f. 

Stamp duty on almanacs, 46. 

Stanhope. Philip, 318. 

Stanton. Robert. 356. 

Star Spangled Banner. 149. 

State House. Old. Boston, stages start 
from, 290. 

Stationers' Company, publishers of 
almanacs, 46 f. 



INDEX 



399 



Sterling, Mass., 4 ; books for sale at, 
I37f.,3i8ff. 

Stern, assistant of Hopkins the witch- 
finder. 1 13. 

Sterne, Laurence, his Sentimental 
Journey sold by Mr. Thomas, 318. 

Stiles, Ezra, 1). D., President of Yale 
College, sermon on the U. S. in 
17S3. '7 ; opinion of English lan- 
guage, i7 ; on astrology, etc., in 
New England, 40 ; on Indian witch- 
craft, etc, 108 f ; on maple sugar, 

122 f. 

Stinginess, 87, 223. 

Stocks, as punishment, 351. 

Stool-ball, at Plymouth, 174. 

Street, smoking in the, 155 f. 

Stubbs, W. C, on history of sugar 
cane in Louisiana, 128. 

Sudbury, Mass., 360. 

Suflield, Conn., book published at, 
42 , peddlers, 144 f. 

Sugar, use and importation of, and 
substitutes for, 121 ff. See Maple 
sugar. 

Suicide of an Indian, 349 f. 

Sumner, Gen. Jethro, described, 263 f. 

Sun, influence on man's body, 53 f. ; 
spots on the, 191, 198. 

Sun, New York, on the Almanac, 62 ; 
the Moon Iloa.x, 252 ff. 

Sun Tavern, at Uedham, Mass., 264 f. 

Sunday, travel forbidden on, 238 f. ; 
reading restricted on, 317. 

Superstitions and folk-lore, Mr. 
Thomas on, 205 ff. See also As- 
trology ; Blood ; Cat ; Comets ; 
Corpse ; Dark Day ; Dreams ; 
Drowning ; Earthquakes ; Eclipses ; 
Folk-medicine ; Fortune tellers ; 
Ghosts ; Head ; Hogs ; Magnetism ; 
Man of the Signs ; Moon ; Murder ; 
Pork; Shrovetide; Signs; Spi- 
ders ; Sympathetic powder ; Toad ; 
Weather ; Witchcraft. 

Surgery and the signs of the zodiac, 
53 ff. ; sympathetic cures, 116 f. 

Susup, Indian, trial of, 365 f. 

Sutcliff, Robert, on cigars and top- 
boots, 220. 

Swallows, hibernation of, 167. 

Swamp luittonwood, 312. 

Svvam|)s, clearing, 311 ff. 

Swap]iing horses, 272. 

Sweeping chimneys, 146. 



Swift, Jonathan, his attack on Par- 
tridge, 44 ff. 

Swine, bewitching of, 206 ; whc u to be 
killed, 66 f., 305 ff. 

Switzerland, witchcraft in, 114. 

Sympathetic powder, 115 ff. ; Digby 
on, 115 ff. ; discussed in Harvard 
theses for A. M., 116 f. 

Syracuse, N. Y., 261. 

Tacitds, on Tuisco or Tuisto, 178. 

Taft's inn, at Uxbridge, Mass., 270; 
Washington's letter to the land- 
lord, 270 f. 

Tailors, dishonesty of, loi ff. 

Talcott, painter, 16. 

Talcott, Maj. John, services in King 
Philip's War, 243. 

Tammany Hall, N. Y. hotel, descrip- 
tion of, 279 f. 

Tantamous, Indian, 370. 

Tarleton, Col. lianastre, character of, 
by Charles Pigot, 325 f. 

Tarratine Indians, Maine, 365 f. 

Tataticiunca, Peter, Indian, 371. 

Taunton, Mass., stage from Boston 
to, 289. 

Taverns, 262 ff. ; fare at, 123 f. ; stand- 
ing of landlords, 263 f., 269 f. ; man- 
ners of landlords, 265 f. ; in Boston, 
163, 276 f., 287 ff. ; shows at, 276 
f. ; public business transacted at, 
278 f. ; tavern-haunting, 88, 94 f., 
272 ff 

Taxes, 92 ; stamp duty on almanacs, 
46. 

Teele, A. K., 13. 

Telegraph Line of coaches, 296. 

Telescopes, 251 ff. 

Temj^erance reform, 211, 275. 

Temple, Sir William, on moxa, 187. 

Tenor bill, 352 f. 

Thacher, James, M. D., essay on salt- 
making, 134; his Orchardist, 141 f. 

Theatres, 150. 

Thieving, sermon in favor of, 26. 

Thomas, Aaron, 8. 

Thomas, Isaiah, his almanac, 3 1 , 60 f. ; 
Isaiah, Jr., 42. 

Thomas, John, Indian teacher, 343. 

Thomas, Odoardo, 2. 

Thomas, Robert Bailey, life and 
character, i ff. ; ancestors, 2 ff. ; 
education, 5 ff. ; as a schoolmaster, 
6 ; plan of making an Almanac, 6 



400 



LN'DEX 



ff. ; as bookbinder and bookseller, 
7 f. ; studies with Osgood Carleton. ; 
S f. ; sojourn in Boston. 9, 14 ; por- 
trait, 16; publication of the Far- 
mers Almanack. 17 ff. : retrospect 
of fifty years, 19 tf. ; signature, 22 ; 
replies to patrons and correspond- 
ents, 25 S.. ; attitude towards as- 
trology-. 39. 50 ff. : omits the Man of 
the Signs. 53 : refrains from mis- 
cellaneous illustrations, 6S ; his con- 
ception of an alman.^c. 71 ; his 
Farmer's Calendar, 7S tf. ; compari- 
son with Cato. So : moral and pru- 
dential advice. So ff. : opinion of 
dogs. S4 : of kitchen gardens. S4 f. : 
his sense of humor, S6 : character 
sketches. S6 ff. : narrative sketch, 
94 f. : his opinion of lawyers, 9S ff. : 
of qu.\ck doctors and quack preach- 
ers, 100 f. : enthusiasm for America 
and American products. i.:i ff. : 
recommends maple sugar. 121 ff. ; 
on slavery. 121 f . : sells chapbooks, 
137 ; portrait of an itinerant book- 
seller, 139 ff. ; on huskings. 16S f. ; 
on changing works. 1 79 ff". ; on spin- 
ning, 1S2 ; on the d.iin,-, 1S2 ; on 
women in the haytield, iS;f. ; on 
Indian summer, 191 : on supersti- 
tion, 205 f. ; on trainings. 209 ; on 
schools, 217 ft".; on credulity and 
newspapers. 2>o; on tavern-haunt- 
ing, etc.. 272 ff. ; on bowling. -76; 
on railroads, 299, 301 f. ; on the 
moon, 305 ff. ; on books and read- 
ing, 31 5 ff. : books for sale by. 31S ff. 
See also Farmer's Almanack. 

Thomas. Solomon, Indian. 349 f. 

Thom.is. William, grandfather of R. 
P., 2 ff. 

Thomas. William, father of R. B.. 2 ff. 

Thompson. Benjamin : see Tompson. 

Thompson, F. M.. on stages. 296. 

Thompson. Zadock. his gun. 244. 

Thomson, George, chemical physician. 
nS f . : book on the plague, iiS: 
dissects a pestilential body, i iS : 
use of toad as remedy, 1 tS. 

Thoreau. Henry, on salt-works on 
Cape Cod, 135 ; on Indian summer. 

Throwing at the cock, 177. 
Tides. 2S : and brain. 307. 
Tileston. Mary Wilder, 319. 



Timber, sale of to English bv Indians, 
346 f . 

Time, Father, figures of, 62 ff., 37S. 

Time-table of stages from Boston in 
iSoi, 2S7 ff. 

Tithingman. stops travellers on Sun- 
day. 23S f. 

Titles of honor. 234 ff. ; fondness for. 

.-34- 
Tituba. Indian woman, 110. 
Tiverton, Conn., a cunning man of. 40. 
Tiw, Germanic ^od, and Tuesday. 

179 : identified by Cotton Mather 

with Tuisco, 179. 
Toad, duel with spider, 104 ff. : jewel 

in head of. 107 : in superstition and 

folk-lore, 114 ff. ; in literature. 115 ; 

use in the plague, etc., 117 ; service- 
able in gardens. 119. 
Toadstone. 107. 
Tobacco culture, 221 : smoke used in 

resuscitation of drowned, 162 f. 

See Smoking. 
Tobias, Indian, murderer of Sassa- 

mon. 76. 
Todd, C. B.. Life of Barlow, 171. 
Todd. D. P., on astronomical hoax, 

261. 
Tom Thumb, 137. 
Tompson. Benjamin, schoolm.ister 

and poet, elegv- on Woodmancy 

and Cheever. 233 : his Xew-Eng- 

land's Crisis, 356 ft". ; speech of 

King Philip. 357 f. 
Top boots. 220. 
Top spinning. 63 f. 
Tortugas, salt from. 133. 
Toteswamp. Indian rider, 351. 
Touch, ordeal of: see Ordeal of the 

bier. 
Training, military, 94, 2oSff.. 225. 
Travel, means of, 2S5 ff. ; works of, 

321 ff. : fictitious. 3225. 
Travellers, entertainment for. 262 ff.; 

accommodated at private houses, 

2Soff. 
Travellers in America : see Abdy : 

Bennett; Candler; Car%-er; Davis; 

Duncan ; Dwight : Hall ; Harriott 

Hodgson : James : Jones : Kendall ; 

Lambert ; M 'Robert : Martineau; 

Melish ; Priest : Rochefoucault ; 

Smith ; Smyth : Sutclirt" ; Thoreau ; 

Twining; Volney : Wansey; Weld. 
Travelliiisr on Sundav. 2;Sf. 



INDEX 



401 



Travis, Daniel, his ahnanar. 6a 

Treating, forblddoi at trainings, 
-10 f. 

Trees, girdling, 311; prnning, 313; 
grafting, 313. 

Tremont St., Boston, 14. 

Trenck, Baron, life of, recom- 
mended by Mr. Thomas. 316 f. 

Trumbull, Benjamin, D.D., his Cen- 
tury Sermon, 317 ; on geographies, 

3*7- 
Trumbull, J. H., Natick Dictionary, 

357- 
Tudor, William, on the Ancient and 

Honorable Artillery Company, 

211. 
Tuesday, origin of name^ 179; 

Shrove Tuesday. i~j S. 
Tuisco i^Tuisto), Germanic deity, in 

Tacitus. 17S ; Cotton Mather on. 

Tunis, Bey of, demands arms of the 

United States^ 20S. 
Turkey-shooting, at taverns, 275 f. 
Turks, conversion of. 20a 
Tuscarora Mountains, 304. 
Twilight, Tim, book-peddler, 1395. 
Twining, Thomas, on stagecoadies, 

291 f. 

UxDERBRiSH : see Bashes. 

United Fire Sociery. of Bosiwi, 

opposite 152. 
United Stares. lormarion 01, 17; 

future prosperity foretold. 17 ; 

Weather Bnreao, 191 ; mOitia 

system, 20S ; navy, 213 £E. 
United States, man-o^var, 315. 
Upham. C. W., Salem Witchcraft, 

112- 

Uppanippaqoem, Indian, 372. 

Upton. Mass., 225. 

Uring, Capt. Xathaniel, Tiwlian 
anecdote, 3605. 

Uskattnhgun. Samoel, Indian saga- 
more. 36a. 

Uibridge, Mass>, innkeeper at, 270. 

V.vx Berkix, Dutch enroy, 11 f. 

Van HeloKMit: see Hdmoot. 

Vane. Sir Henry, residence in Bos- 
ton, 14. 

Vassalborm^h, Maine, hnsldiig at, 
16S. 

Vsssall estate, Boston, 11, 14 £F. 



36 



Vassall. William, 14. 

Vegetables, S4 f . 

Venom of toad, spider, etc, ia+ d". : 
antidotes, 104 fil 

Venus, the planet, taken for an elec- 
tric light. 261. 

Vermont, Williams's History of, rec- 
ommendexi by Mr. Thomas, 316. 

Vermont Ximrod. the. 240 f. 

Verses contributed to the Almanac, 
2S S. See also Poetry. 

Victoria, Queen, 193 

Virginia, Indians of, 196 ; marksmen 
of, 246 ; inns in, 265 f., 2S3 f . ; hos- 
pitality. 2S3f. 

Volcanoes and earthquakes, soi. 

Volney, C. F. C, comte de, on In- 
dian summer, 192. 

Voyage, horoscope for, 39 f. 

Wab.\n, Indian ruler, warrant as- 
cribed to. 334 f. : Eliot in his wig- 
wam. 335 f.: his character. 336 f. ; 
first conviert, 336 ; made a Ruler of 
Fifty, 337 ; as a judge, 33- ; princi- 
pal ruler at Xatick. 337 : informs 
the English of King Philip's pro- 
jects, 337 : nature of his authority, 
337 f., 344 : confined at Deer Is- 
land, 343 1. : speech on release, 
343 f. : death, 344 ; unable to write, 
344; deeds signed by him. 344; 
(^^rs his son to be educated. 345 ; 
letters addressed to. 372 f. 

Waban, Hannah, 347, 

Waban, Thomas, Indian warrant 
ascribed to, 335 : anecdote of, 335 ; 
his English education, 345 f. ; 
signs deeds. 345 : connection with 
the Indian title to Groion. Mass., 
345 f. ; town clerk of Xadck, 
Mass., 346 f . ; specimen of his 
records in Indian and English, 
346 ; selectman of Natick, 347 ; ac- 
quainted with Jodge Sewall, 
34S f. ; tide of Captain, 35a 

Waban, Thomas, Jr., 34S. 

Wabquissit, 341. 

Wages. iSa 

Wagons, 2S5 flf. 

Waldron, Isaac, iSol 

Wansey. Henry, on Connecticnt 
lawyers, 9S ; 00 taverns, 123 f. ; on 
maple si^ar, I23f. ; on increase 
in travel, 2S7. 



402 



INDEX 



War of 1812, navy in, 213 ff. 
Warrant, Indian, 333 ff. 
Washington, George, 234 ff.; his 

opinion of Rufus Putnam, 225 ; 

his degree of LL.D., 234 ff. ; respect 

for, 238 ; encounter with a tithing- 

man, 23S ; opinion of mosquitoes, 

248 f. ; tour in New England, 238, 

270 ; letter to Landlord Taft, 

270 f. ; Life of, 316. 
Watches, 89. 

Waterman, Peter, Indian, 334. 
Watermelons, sugar from, 128. 
Waters, Anne, murderess, 72. 
Waters, T. F., Life of John Win- 

throp the Younger, 132. 
Watertown, Mass., Fresh Pond, 9 ; 

battle between mouse and snalvc 

at, 108 ; stage from Boston to, 

290 ; Indians near, 350. 
Wattasacompanum, Indian, 341 f. 
Watts, Isaac, D.D., his hymns sold 

by Mr. Thomas, 318. 
Watuchpoo, Indian, agent of Philip, 

368. 
Weasels, resuscitation of, 120. 
Weather, Indian summer, 191 ff. ; 

comets, 191, 198 ff. ; sun spots, 191, 

198 ; signs, 205 f. 
Webb, John, 175. 
Wedding in New England, 141 f. 
Weeden, W. B., on salt-making, 133. 
Weeds, when to pull, 306. 
Weld, Isaac, Jr., on marksmanship, 

246; on mosquitoes, 248 f. 
Wells, F. P., on wages, 180. 
Wenham, Jane, alleged witch, 114. 
Werewolves, 159. 
Wesley, John, 148. 
West, John, publisher of the Farmer's 

Almanack from 1797 to 1820, 34. 
West Boylston, Mass., 98 ; formation 

of, 4 f. 
West Indies, sugar, 121 f., 125, 127 f. ; 

salt, 133. 
Wharves, smoking on, forbidden, 155. 
What to read, 315 ff. 
Wheat, when to sow, 306; smut in, 

306; difficulty of raising in New 

England, 327 ff . ; blasting of, 327 

ff. ; effect of barberry bushes on, 

328 ff. 
Whipping, as punishment, 335, 350 ff. 
White, Mary Wilder, 318. 
White Lion tavern, Boston, 28S. 



Whitmore, W. H., 139, 250, 341. 

Whitney, Rev. Peter, History of Wor- 
cester County, Mass., 320. 

Whittier on the Dark Day, 203. 

Wicket, Jeremy, Indian, 334. 

Wicket Island, Mass., 334. 

Wickett, Simon, Indian, 334. 

Wilder, Mary, 318. 

Wilkes, John, 10, 12, 13; his sister, 
Madam Hayley, 9 ff. 

Willard, Emma, founder of female 
seminaries, 230. 

Willard, Joseph, on Sewall's fire, 

!53- 

William Henry, Fort, march to, in 
1757, 4 ; massacre at, 321. 

Williams, Samuel, his Natural and 
Civil History of Vermont, recom- 
mended by Mr. Thomas, 316. 

Williamson, W. D., historian of 
Maine, on barberries and grain, 
332 ; account of Tarratine Indians, 
365 f. ; of trial of Susup, 365 f. 

Willis, William, 182, 309. 

Will-o'-the-wisp, 196. 

Willoughby, C. C, sketch of a Mas- 
sachusetts Indian, 359. 

Wilson, Rev. John, on battle between 
mouse and snake, 108 ; account of 
service in Waban's wigwam, 336 ; 
character of Waban, 336; on 
Thomas Waban, 345. 

Windmills, 135 f. 

Wine, 262. 

Winnebago Indians, 359. 

Winslow, Edward, 358. 

Winthrop, Gov. John, account of mur- 
ders, 75 ; on battle between mouse 
and snake, 108. 

Winthrop, John, the Younger, letter 
from Sir Kenelm Digby to, 117; 
as a salt-maker, 132 f. 

Winthrop, John, F. R. S., on sym- 
pathy in medicine, u6. 

Winthrop, Professor John, 200 ff. ; 
his degree of LL. D., 200, 235 ; on 
comets, 200; on earthquakes, 200 
ff. ; on lightning rods, 201 f. 

Winthrop, Mass., Indian dug up at, 

359- 
Witchcraft, essay on, in I. Thomas's 
Almanack for 1782, 60; general 
considerations on, 108 ff. ; among 
Indians, 108 ff., 336, 341 ; at Salem, 
iioff. ; in New England and else- 



INDEX 



403 



where, ito ff. ; Belknap on, no; 
Henry More and Glanvil on, in ; 
Addison on, 1 14. 

Wizards, Indian, 108 ff ., 336, 341, 363 f. 

Women, farm labor of, 182 f. ; educa- 
tion of, 229 f. 

Wood, when to cut, 306. 

Woodbridge, Rev. William, the " Co- 
lumbus of female education," 230. 

Woodmancy, John, elegy on, 233. 

Woods, Lydia, 3. 

Woodstock, Conn., 341. 

Woodward, Daniel, his almanac, 49 f. ; 
astrology in, 49 f. 

Worcester, Mass., hospital at, 15; 
American Antiquarian Society, 16, 
337 ff. ; books printed at, 42 ; rail- 
road from Boston to, 300 f. ; Soci- 
ety of Antiquity, 231,301 ; Whitney's 
History of, 32S ; Indian court at, 
341 f- 



W^orcester Magazine, 5, 98. 
Wreckers, 96. 

Wright, Aaron, his journal, .244. 
Wright, Thomas, Narratives of Sor- 
cery and Magic, 114. 
Writing schools, 5. 
W'iirzburg, witchcraft in, 113. 
Wuttke, Adolf, 159. 

Yale College (and University), icS, 

122, 129, 140 f. 
Yankee dialect, 87 ff. See Language. 
Yankee Hero tavern, Boston, 289. 
Yarmouth, Mass., salt-works at, 129. 
Yellow Day of 1881, 205. 
Youghiegany River, 304. 
Young, Arthur, 123. 
Young Hunting, ballad, 161. 

Zadkiel's almanac, predictions, 47 f. 
Zodiac: see Signs. 



^D 18.5^ 



